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MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY, 



AND 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE, 



iUttlj ilTusk for tljc Jplatjs. 



BY 



Lsf. _ -A~ ' 



Mrs. HORACE ^MANN, 

AND 

ELIZABETH P. PEABODY. 



BOSTON: 
T. O. H. P.BURNHAM 

NEW YORK: 0. S. FELT, 36 Walker St. 
1863. 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1863, by 

T. 0. II. P. Burnham, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



V 



$ 



# 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE.* 
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON. 



PREFACE. 



It is in answer to a demand now become very general in 
this community, that I bring forward an American Kinder- 
garten Guide. Kindergartens are springing up in all our 
cities. The French and English guides, and the Journals 
of The New Education, published in Germany and France, 
are expensive to import ; and, besides, I think the selections 
I take from these sources, modified by my own views, make 
a book more suitable for American use than a foreign work 
can be. 

I have persuaded my sister to give me her letters on the \ 
Moral Culture of Infancy, for an Appendix to my work, 
because moral culture is a twin object with physical culture 
in a Kindergarten ; and the letters express the very spirit 
of Froebel, whose primary object was to give a moral and 
religious cast to the intelligence of healthy children. 

The letters were written in the midst of the practical 
experiments they describe, in correspondence with Mrs. 
Lowell's " Letters .on the Theory of Teaching," published in 
1841. They could not be published at the same time, be- 
cause they were so full of personal details, that the children 
spoken of would have been easily identified. After this 
lapse of time identification will not be easy. The circum- 
stances of Mrs. Lowell's letters were imaginary, and they 
make a noble manual for governesses. But in both cases 
the letters were written for their authors' mutual under- 



iv PEEFACE. 

standing and improvement, with no view to publication ; and 
are all the more genuine and valuable on that account. 

I have reduced the price of my Guide, by leaving out the 
plates and directions for the use of Froebel's Gifts ; be- 
cause, without the Gifts, the directions are useless, and with 
them, superfluous. Two of these Gifts, intended for the 
nursery, have already been published in Boston, with the 
manuals for direction. And the other four, which are indis- 
pensable for the Kindergarten, will be published in one box 
with the manual of plates, as soon as the public shall de- 
mand it by specific orders. It would be an admirable in- 
vestment of capital for some one to get up this ; also a box 
of materials for pea-work, and one for weaving the little 
paper mats : in short, all the materials for the manipulations 
of the Kindergarten. 



E. P. P. 



15 Plnckney Street, Boston. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

I have been urged to publish these letters, written twenty 
years ago, as an appendix to a Kindergarten Guide, because 
the school herein described was a groping attempt at some- 
thing of the same kind, and had left very pleasant memories 
in the hearts of the children referred to — now no longer chil- 
dren, but some of them men and women nobly and beauti- 
fully acting their parts on earth as parents ; and others, — 
having died martyrs' deaths for human freedom in the desolat- 
ing war that now ravages our beloved country, — angels in 
heaven. 

If an inborn love of children and of school-keeping are 
qualifications for judging of the best means of educating 
them, I may claim to have known something of the theory 
and practice best adapted to that end. My object was to 



PREFACE. v 

put them in possession of all their faculties. Many im- 
provements in methods, and many facilities in means, have 
been added to the resources of teachers since these letters 
were written. Physical training is felt to be of the greatest 
importance, in preference to the ancient mode of shutting 
children up many hours in close rooms, and repressing all 
natural and joyous life. The principle is discovered of 
educating by directing the activities. Hence the Kinder- 
garten. 

M. M. 

Cobtcqed, Mass., 1863. 



CONTENTS. 
— ♦ — 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. Kindergarten — What is it? . . . .9 

II. Rooms, etc. 25 

III. Music 28 

IV. Plays, Gymnastics, and Dancing ... 34 
V. Blocks, Sticks, and Peas 39 

VI. Manipulations 45 

VII. Moral and Religious Exercises . . .52 

VIII. Object Lessons 58 

IX. Geometry 65 

X. Arithmetic 72 

XL Reading . . . .75 

XII. Grammar and Languages . . . . 98 

XIII. Geography 103 

XIV. The Secret of Power 104 



Moral Culture of Infancy 105 



AMERICAN KINDERGARTEN. 



CHAPTER I. 

KINDERGARTEN WHAT IS IT ? * 

"What is a Kindergarten ? I will reply by negatives. It 
is not the old-fashioned infant-school. That was a narrow 
institution, comparatively; the object being (I do not speak 
of Pestalozzi's own, but that which we have had in this 
country and in England) to take the children of poor labor- 
ers, and keep them out of the fire and the streets, while their 
mothers went to their necessary labor. Very good things, 
indeed, in their way. Their principle of discipline was to 
circumvent the wills of children, in every way that would 
enable their teachers to keep them within bounds, and quiet. 
It was certainly better that they should learn to sing by rote 
the Creed and the " definitions " of scientific terms, and such 
like, than to learn the profanity and obscenity of the streets, 
which was the alternative. But no mother who wished for 
anything which might be called the development of her child 
would think of putting it into an infant-school, especially if 
she lived in the country, amid 

" the mighty sum 
Of things forever speaking," 

where any " old grey stone " would altogether surpass, as a 
stand-point, the bench of the highest class of an infant-school. 
In short, they did not state the problem of infant culture 
with any breadth, and accomplished nothing of general inter- 
est on the subject. 

* First published in Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1862. 
1* 



10 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

Neither is the primary public school a Kindergarten, though 
it is but justice to the capabilities of that praiseworthy insti- 
tution, so important in default of a better, to say that in one 
of them, at the North End of Boston, an enterprising and 
genial teacher has introduced one feature of Froebel's plan. 
She has actually given to each of her little children a box 
of playthings, wherewith to amuse itself according to its own 
sweet will, at all times when not under direct instruction, — 
necessarily, in her case, on condition of its being perfectly 
quiet ; and this one thing makes this primary school the best 
one in Boston, both as respects the attainments of the schol- 
ars and their good behavior. 

Kindergarten means a garden of children, and Froebel, 
the inventor of it, or rather, as he would prefer to express 
it, the discoverer of the method of Nature, meant to symbolize 
by the name the spirit and plan of treatment. How does 
the gardener treat his plants ? He studies their individual 
natures, and puts them into such circumstances of soil and 
atmosphere as enable them to grow, flower, and bring forth 
fruit, — also to renew their manifestation year after year. 
He does not expect to succeed unless he learns all their 
wants, and the circumstances in which these wants will be 
supplied, and all their possibilities of beauty and use, and the 
means of giving them opportunity to be perfected. On the 
other hand, while he knows that they must not be forced 
against their individual natures, he does not leave them to 
grow wild, but prunes redundancies, removes destructive 
worms and bugs from their leaves and stems, and weeds 
from their vicinity, — carefully watching to learn what pecu- 
liar insects affect what particular plants, and how the former 
can be destroyed without injuring the vitality of the latter. 
After all the most careful gardener can do, he knows that 
the form of the plant is predetermined in the germ or seed, 
and that the inward tendency must concur with a multitude 
of influences, the most powerful and subtile of which is re- 
moved in place ninety-five millions of miles away. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 11 

In the Kindergarten, children are treated on an analogous 
plan. It presupposes gardeners of the mind, who are quite 
aware that they have as little power to override the charac- 
teristic individuality of a child, or to predetermine this char- 
acteristic, as the gardener of plants to say that a lily shall 
be a rose. But notwithstanding this limitation on one side, 
and the necessity for a concurrence of the Spirit on the other, 
— which is more independent of our modification than the 
remote sun, — yet they must feel responsible, after all, for 
the perfection of the development, in so far as removing 
every impediment, preserving every condition, and pruning 
every redundance. 

This analogy of education to the gardener's art is so strik- 
ing, both as regards what we can and what we cannot do, 
that Froebel has put every educator into a most suggestive 
Normal School, by the very word which he has given to his 
seminary, — Kindergarten. 

If every school-teacher in the land had a garden of flowers 
and fruits to cultivate, it could hardly fail that he would learn 
to be wise in his vocation. For suitable preparation, the 
first, second, and third thing is, to 

u Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be j'our teacher." 

The u new education," as the French call it, begins with 
children in the mother's arms. Froebel had the nurses bring 
to his establishment, in Hamburg, children who could not 
talk, who were not more than three months old, and trained 
the nurses to work on his principles and by his methods. 
This will hardly be done in this country, at least at present ; 
but to supply the place of such a class, a lady of Boston has 
prepared and published, under copyright, Froebel's First 
Gift, consisting of six soft balls of the three primary and 
the three secondary colors, which are sold in a box, with a 
little manual for mothers, in which the true principle and 
plan of tending babies, so as not to rasp their nerves, but to 
amuse without wearying them, is very happily suggested. 



12 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

There is no mother or nurse who would not be assisted by 
this little manual essentially. As it says in the beginning, — 
" Tending babies is an art, and every art is founded on a 
science of observations ; for love is not wisdom, but love must 
act according to wisdom in order to succeed. Mothers and 
nurses, however tender and kind-hearted, may, and oftenest 
do, weary and vex the nerves of children, in well-meant 
efforts to amuse them, and weary themselves the while. 
Froebel's exercises, founded on the observations of an intel- 
ligent sensibility, are intended to amuse without wearying, 
to educate without vexing." 

Froebel's Second Gift for children, adapted to the age from 
one to two or three years, with another little book of direc- 
tions, has also been published by the same lady, and is per- 
haps a still greater boon to every nursery ; for this is the 
age when many a child's temper is ruined, and the inclina- 
tion of the twig wrongly bent, through sheer want of resource 
and idea, on the part of nurses and mothers. 

But it is to the next age — from three years old and up- 
wards — that the Kindergarten becomes the desideratum, if 
not a necessity. The isolated home, made into a flower-vase 
by the application of the principles set forth in the Gifts 
above mentioned, may do for babies. But every mother and 
nurse knows how hard it is to meet the demands of a child 
too young to be taught to read, but whose opening intelli- 
gence and irrepressible bodily activity are so hard to be met 
by an adult, however genial and active. Children generally 
take the temper of their whole lives from this period of their 
existence. Then " the twig is bent," either towards that 
habit of self-defence which is an ever-renewing cause of 
selfishness, or to the sun of love-in-exercise, which is the 
exhaustless source of goodness and beauty.* 

The indispensable thing now is a sufficient society of chil- 

* If some large dealer would get up the other four Block Gifts in one 
box, with plates of direction taken from Ronge^s Guide, there would be a 
large sale, for these blocks are indispensable (in the Kindergarten) to each 
child. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 13 

dren. It is only in the society of equals that the social in- 
stinct can be gratified, and come into equilibrium with the 
instinct of self-preservation. Self-love, and love of others, 
are equally natural ; and before reason is developed, and the 
proper spiritual life begins, sweet and beautiful childhood 
may bloom out and imparadise our mortal life. Let us only 
give the social instinct of children its fair chance. For this 
purpose, a few will not do. The children of one family are 
not enough, and do not come along fast enough. A large 
company should be gathered out of many families. It will 
be found that the little things are at once taken out of them- 
selves, and become interested in each other. In the variety, 
affinities develop themselves very prettily, and the rough 
points of rampant individualities wear off. We have seen 
a highly-gifted child, who, at home, was — to use a vulgar, 
but expressive word — pesky and odious, with the exact- 
ing demands of a powerful, but untrained mind and heart, 
become " sweet as roses " spontaneously, amidst the rebound 
of a large, well-ordered, and carefully watched child-society. 
Anxious mothers have brought us children, with a thousand 
deprecations and explanations of their characters, as if they 
thought we were going to find them little monsters, which 
their motherly hearts were persuaded they were not, though 
they behaved like little sanchos at home, — and, behold, they 
were as harmonious, from the very beginning, as if they had 
undergone the subduing; influence of a lifetime. We are 
quite sure that children begin with loving others quite as in- 
tensely as they love themselves, — forgetting themselves in 
their love of others, — if they only have as fair a chance 
of being benevolent and self-sacrificing as of being selfish. 
Sympathy is as much a natural instinct as self-love, and no 
more or less innocent, in a moral point of view. Either 
principle alone makes an ugly and depraved form of natural 
character. Balanced, they give the element of happiness, 
and the conditions of spiritual goodness and truth, — making 
children fit temples for the Holy Ghost to dwell in. 



14 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

A Kindergarten, then, is children in society, — a common- 
wealth or republic of children, — whose laws are all part 
and parcel of the Higher Law alone. It may be contrasted, 
in every particular, with the old-fashioned school, which is 
an absolute monarchy, where the children are subjected to 
a lower expediency, Jiaving for its prime end quietness, or 
such order as has "reigned in Warsaw" since 1831. 

But let us not be misunderstood. We are not of those 
who think that children, in any condition whatever, will in- 
evitably develop into beauty and goodness. Human nature 
tends to revolve in a vicious circle, around the idiosyncrasy ; 
and children must have over them, in the person of a wise 
and careful teacher, a power which shall deal with them as 
God deals with the mature, presenting the claims of sym- 
pathy and truth whenever they presumptuously or uncon- 
sciously fall into selfishness. We have the best conditions 
of moral culture in a company large enough for the exacting 
disposition of the solitary child to be balanced by the claims 
made by others on the common stock of enjoyment, — there 
being a reasonable oversight of older persons, wide-awake to 
anticipate, prevent, and adjust the rival pretensions which 
must always arise where there are finite beings with infinite 
desires, while Reason, whose proper object is God, is yet 
undeveloped. 

Let the teacher always take for granted that the law of 
love is quick within, whatever are appearances, and the 
better self will generally respond. In proportion as the 
child is young and unsophisticated, will be the certainty of 
the response to a teacher of simple faith : 

" There are who ask not if thine eye 

Be on them, — who, in love and truth, 
Where no misgiving is, rely 
Upon the genial sense of youth. 

"And hlest are they who in the main 
This faith even now do entertain, 
Live in the spirit of this creed, 
Yet find another strength, according to their need." 



KINDERGARTEN" GUIDE. 15 

Such are the natural Kindergartners, who prevent disor- 
der by employing and entertaining children, so that they are 
kept in an accommodating and loving mood by never being 
thrown on self-defence, — and when selfishness is aroused, 
who check it by an appeal to sympathy, or Conscience, which 
is the presentiment of Reason, a fore-feeling of moral order, 
for whose culture matgj'ial order is indispensable. 

But order must be kept by the child, not only unconsci- 
ously, but intentionally. Order is the child of reason, and 
in turn cultivates the intellectual principle. To bring out 
order on the physical plane, the Kindergarten makes it a 
serious purpose to organize romping, and set it to music, 
which cultivates the physical nature also. Romping is the 
ecstasy of the body, and we shall find that in proportion as 
children tend to be violent they are vigorous in body. There 
is always morbid weakness of some kind where there is no 
instinct for hard play ; and it begins to be the common sense 
that energetic physical activity must not be repressed, but 
favored. Some plan of play prevents the little creatures 
from hurting each other, and fancy naturally furnishes the 
plan, — the mind unfolding itself in fancies, which are easily 
quickened and led in harmless directions by an adult of any 
resource. Those who have not imagination themselves must 
seek the aid of the Kindergarten guides, where will be found 
arranged to music the labors of the peasant, and cooper, and 
sawyer, the wind-mill, the water-mill, the weather-vane, the 
clock, the pigeon-house, the hares, the bees, and the cuckoo. 
Children delight to personate animals, and a fine genius could 
not better employ itself than in inventing a great many more 
plays, setting them to rhythmical words, describing what is 
to be done. Every variety of bodily exercise might be made 
and kept within the bounds of order and beauty by plays 
involving the motions of different animals and machines of 
industry. Kindergarten plays are easy intellectual exer- 
cises ; for to do anything whatever with a thought before- 
hand, develops the mind or quickens the intelligence ; and 



16 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

thought of this kind does not tax intellect, or check physical 
development, which last must never be sacrificed in the pro- 
cess of education. 

There are enough instances of marvellous acquisition in 
infancy to show that imbibing with the mind is as natural as 
with the body, if suitable beverage is put to the lips ; but in 
most cases the mind's power is balancdi by instincts of body, 
which should have priority, if they cannot certainly be in 
full harmony. The mind can afford to wait for the maturing 
of the body, for it survives the body ; while the body cannot 
afford to wait for the mind, but is irretrievably stunted, if the 
nervous energy is not free to stimulate its special organs, at 
least equally with those of the mind. 

It is not, however, the intention to sacrifice the culture of 
either mind or body, but to harmonize them. They can and 
ought to grow together. They mutually help each other. 

Dr. Dio Lewis's " Free Exercises " are suitable to the Kin- 
dergarten, and may be taken in short lessons of a quarter of 
an hour, or even of ten minutes. Children are fond of pre- 
cision also, and it will be found that they like the teaching 
best, when they are made to do the exercises exactly right, 
and in perfect time to the music. 

But the regular gymnastics and the romping plays must 
be alternated with quiet employments, of course, but still 
active. They will sing at their plays by rote ; and also 
should be taught other songs by rote. But there can be 
introduced a regular drill on the scale, which should never 
last more than ten minutes at a time. This, if well man- 
aged, will cultivate their ears and voices, so that in the 
course of a y'ear they will become very expert in telling 
any note struck, if not in striking it. The ear is cultivated 
sooner than the voice, and they may be taught to name the 
octave as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, while their imaginations are 
impressed by drawing a ladder of eight rounds on the black- 
board, to signify that the voice rises by regular gradation. 
This will fix their attention, and their interest will not flag, 
if the teacher has any tact. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 17 

Slates and pencils are indispensable in a Kindergarten 
from the first. One side of a slate can be ruled with a 
sharp point in small squares, and if their fancy is interested 
by telling them to make a fish-net, they will carefully make 
their pencils follow these lines, — which makes a first exer- 
cise in drawing. Their little fingers are so unmanageable 
that at first they will not be able to make straight lines even 
with this help. For variety, little patterns can be given 
them, drawn on the blackboard, (or on paper similarly ruled,) 
of picture-frames and patterns for carpets. When they can 
make squares well, they can be shown how to cross them 
with diagonals, and make circles inside of the squares, and 
outside of them, and encouraged to draw on the other side 
of the slate from their own fancy, or from objects. Entire 
sympathy and no destructive criticism should meet every 
effort. Self-confidence is the first requisite for success. If 
they think they have had success, it is indispensable that it 
should be echoed from without. Of course there will be 
poor perspective ; even Schmidt's method of perspective 
cannot be introduced to very young children. A natural 
talent for perspective sometimes shows itself, which by-and- 
by can be perfected by Schmidt's method.* 

But little children will not draw long at a time. Nice 
manipulation, which is important, can be taught, and the eye 
for form cultivated, by drawing for them birds and letting 
them prick the lines. It will enctent them to have some- 
thing pretty to carry home now and then. Perforated board 
can also be used to teach them the use of a needle and thread. 
They will like to make the outlines of ships and steamboats, 
birds, &c, which can be drawn for them with a lead pencil 
on the board by the teachers. Weaving strips of colored 
card-board into papers cut for them is another enchanting 
amusement, and can be made subservient to teaching them 
the harmonies of colors. In the latter part of the season, 
when they have an accumulation of pricked birds, or have 

* See Common School Journal for 1842-3. 



18 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

learned to draw them, they can be allowed colors to paint 
them in a rough manner. It is, perhaps, worth while to say, 
that, in teaching children to draw on their slates, it is better 
for the teacher to draw at the moment on the blackboard 
than to give them patterns of birds, utensils, etc., because 
then the children will see how to begin and proceed, and 
are not discouraged by the mechanical perfection of their 
model. 

Drawing ought always rather to precede reading and writ- 
ing, as the minute appreciation of forms is the proper prep- 
aration for these. But reading and writing may come into 
Kindergarten exercises at once, if reading is taught by the 
phonic method, (which saves all perplexity to the child's 
brain,) and accompanied by printing on the slate. It then 
alternates with other things, as one of the amusements. We 
will describe how we have seen it taught. The class sat 
before a blackboard, with slates and pencils. The teacher 
said, — " Now let us make all the sounds that we can with the 
lips : First, put the lips gently together and sound m," (not 
em,) — which they all did. Then she said, — " Now let us 
draw it on the blackboard, — three short straight marks by 
the side of each other, and join them on the top, — that is 
m. What is it ? " They sounded m, and made three marks 
and joined them on the top, with more or less success. The 
teacher said, — " Now put your lips close together and say 
p." (This is mute and t#be whispered.) They all imitated 
the motion made. She said, — " Now let us write it ; one 
straight mark, then the upper lip puffed out at the top." 
M and p, to be written and distinguished, are perhaps enough 
for one lesson, which should not reach half an hour in length. 
At the next lesson these were repeated again. Then the 
teacher said, — " Now put your lips together and make the 
same motion as you did to say p ; but make a little more 
sound, and it will be b " (which is sonorous). "You must 
write it differently from p ; — you must make a short mark 
and put the under lip on." " Now put your teeth on your 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 19 

under lip and say f." (She gave the power.) " You must 
write it by making a short straight mark make a bow, and 
then cross it with a little mark across the middle," " Now 
fix your lips in the same manner and sound a little, and you 
will make v. Write it by making two little marks meet at 
the bottom." 

This last letter was made a separate lesson of, and the 
other lessons were reviewed. The teacher then said, — 
" Now you have learned some letters, — all the lip-letters," 
— making them over, and asking what each was. She 
afterwards added w, — giving its power and form, and put 
it with the lip-letters. At the next lesson they were told to 
make the letters with their lips, and she wrote them down 
on the board, and then said, — " Now we will make some 
tooth-letters. Put your teeth together and say t." (She 
gave the power, and showed them how to write it.) " Now 
put your teeth together and make a sound and it will be d." 
" That is written just like b, only we put the lip behind." 
" Now put your teeth together and hiss, and then make this 
little crooked snake (s). Then fix your teeth in the same 
manner and buzz like a bee. You write z pointed this way." 
" Now put your teeth together and say j, written with a dot." 
At the next lesson the throat-letters were given ; first the 
hard guttural was sounded, and they were told three ways to 
write it, c, k, q, distinguished as round, high, and with a tail. 
C was not sounded see, but c and k and q alike (ik). An- 
other lesson gave them the soft guttural g, but did not sound 
it jee ; and the aspirate h, but did not call it aitch, 

Another lesson gave the vowels, (or voice-letters, as she 
called them,) and it was made lively by her writing after- 
wards all of them in one word, mieaou, and calling it the 
cat's song. It took from a week to ten days to teach these 
letters, one lesson a day of about twenty minutes. Then 
came words : mamma, papa, puss, pussy, etc. The vowels 
always sounded as in Italian, and i and y were distinguish- 
ed as with a dot and with a taih 



20 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

At first only one word was the lesson, and the letters 
were reviewed in their divisions of lip-letters, throat-letters, 
tooth-letters, voice-letters. The latter were sounded the 
Italian way, as in the words arm, egg, ink, oak, and Perw. 
This teacher had Miss Peabody's " First Nursery Reading- 
Book," and when she had taught the class to make all the 
words on the first page of it, she gave each of the children 
the book, and told them to find first one word and then an- 
other. It was a great pleasure to them to be told that now 
they could read. They were encouraged to copy the words 
out of the book upon their slates. 

The " First Nursery Reading-Book " has in it no words 
that have exceptions in their spelling to the sounds given to 
the children as the powers of the letters. Nor has it any 
diphthong or combinations of letters, such as oi, ou, ch, sh, fh. 
After they could read it at sight, they were told that all 
words were not so regular, and their attention was called to 
the initial sounds of thin, shin, and chin, and to the proper 
diphthongs, ou, oi, and au, and they wrote words considering 
these as additional characters. Then " Mother Goose," was 
put into their hands, and they were made to read by rote 
the songs they already knew by heart, and to copy them. 
It was a great entertainment to find the queer words, and 
these were made the nucleus of groups of similar words 
which were written on the blackboard and copied on their 
slates. 

We have thought it worth while to give in detail this 
method of teaching to read, because it is the most entertain- 
ing to children to be taught so, and because many successful 
instances of the pursuit of this plan have come under our 
observation ; and one advantage of it has been, that the 
children so taught, though never going through the common 
spelling-lessons, have uniformly exhibited a rare exactness 
in orthography. 

In going through this process, the children learn to print 
very nicely, and generally can do so sooner than they can 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 21 

read. It is a small matter afterwards to teach them to turn 
the print into script. They should be taught to write with 
the lead pencil before the pen, whose use need not come 
into the Kindergarten. 

But we must not omit one of the most important exercises 
for children in the Kindergarten, — that of block-building. 
Froebel has four Gifts of blocks. Ronge's " Kindergarten 
Guide " has pages of royal octavo filled with engraved forms, 
that can be made by variously laying eight little cubes, and 
sixteen little planes two inches long, one inch broad, and one- 
half an inch thick. Chairs, tables, stables, sofas, garden-seats, 
and innumerable forms of symmetry, make an immense re- 
source for children, who also should be led to invent other 
forms and imitate other objects. So quick are the fancies 
of children, that the blocks will serve also as symbols of 
everything in Nature and imagination. We have seen an 
ingenious teacher assemble a class of children around her 
large table, to each of whom she had given the blocks. The 
first thing was to count them, a great process of arithmetic 
ty most of them. Then she made something and explained 
it. It was perhaps a light-house, — and some blocks would 
represent rocks near it to be avoided, and ships sailing in the 
ocean ; or perhaps it was a hen-coop, with chickens inside, 
and a fox prowling about outside, and a boy who was going 
to catch the fox and save the fowls. Then she told each 
child to make something, and when it was done hold up a 
hand. The first one she asked to explain, and then went 
round the class. If one began to speak before another had 
ended, she would hold up her finger and say, — " It is not 
your turn." In the course of the winter, she taught, over 
these blocks, a great deal about the habits of animals. She 
studied natural history in order to be perfectly accurate in 
her symbolic representation of the habitation of each animal, 
and their enemies were also represented by blocks. The 
children imitated these ; and when they drew upon their 
imaginations for facts, and made fantastic creations, she 



22 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

would say, — " Those, I think, were fairy hens " (or what- 
ever) ; for it was her principle to accept everything, and 
thus tempt out their invention. The great value of this ex- 
ercise is to get them into the habit of representing something 
they have thought by an outward sjmibol. The explanations 
they are always eager to give, teach them to express them- 
selves in words. Full scope is given to invention, whether 
in the direction of possibilities or of the impossibilities in 
which children's imaginations revel, — in either case the 
child being trained to the habit of embodiment of its thought. 

Froebel thought it very desirable to have a garden where 
the children could cultivate flowers. He had one which he 
divided into lots for the several children, reserving a portion 
for his own share in which they could assist him. He thought 
it the happiest mode of calling their attention to the invisible 
God, whose power must be waited upon, after the conditions 
for growth are carefully arranged according to laws which 
they must observe. Where a garden is impossible, a flower- 
pot with a plant in it, for each child to take care of, would 
do very well. # 

But the best way to cultivate a sense of the presence of 
God is to draw the attention to the conscience, which is very 
active in children, and which seems to them fas we all can 
testify from our own remembrance) another than themselves, 
and yet themselves. We have heard a person say, that in 
her childhood she was puzzled to know which was herself, 
the voice of her inclination or of her conscience, for they 
were palpably two ; and what a joyous thing it was when 
she was first convinced that one was the Spirit of God, whom 
unlucky teaching had previously embodied in a form of ter- 
ror on a distant judgment-seat. Children are consecrated as 
soon as they get the spiritual idea, and it may be so presented 
that it shall make them happy as well as true. But the adult 
who enters into such conversation with a child must be 
careful not to shock and profane, instead of nurturing the 
soul. It is possible to avoid both discouraging and flattering 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 23 

views, and to give the most tender and elevating associa- 
tions. 

But children require not only an alternation of plvysical 
and mental amusements, but some instruction to be passively 
received. They delight in stories, and a wise teacher can 
make this subservient to the highest uses by reading beauti- 
ful creations of the imagination. Not only such household- 
stories as " Sanford and Merton," Mrs. Farrar's " Robinson 
Crusoe," and Salzmann's " Elements of Morality," but syrn- 
bolization like the heroes of Asgard, the legends of the Mid- 
dle Ages, classic and chivalric tales, the legend of Saint 
George, and " Pilgrim's Progress," can in the mouth of a 
skilful reader be made subservient to moral culture. The 
reading sessions should not exceed ten or fifteen minutes. 

Anything of the nature of scientific teaching should be 
done by presenting objects for examination and investigation.* 
Flowers and insects, shells, etc., are easily handled. The 
observations should be drawn out of the children, not made to 
them, except as corrections of their mistakes. Experiments 
with the prism, and in crystallization and transformation, are 
useful and desirable to awaken taste for the sciences of Na- 
ture. In short, the Kindergarten should give the beginnings 
of everything. " What is well begun is half done." 

We must say a word about the locality and circumstances 
of a Kindergarten. There is published in Lausanne, France, 
a newspaper devoted to the interests of this mode of educa- 
tion, in whose early numbers is described a Kindergarten ; 
which seems to be of the nature of a boarding-school; at 
least, the children are there all day. Each child has a gar- 
den, and there is one besides where they work in common. 
There are accommodations for keeping animals, and minia- 
ture tools to do mechanical labor of various kinds. In short, 
it is a child's world. But in this country, especially in New 
England, parents would not consent to be so much separated 
from their children, and a few hours of Kindergarten in the 
* Calkin's Object Lessons will give hints. 



24 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

early part of the da)' will serve an excellent purpose, — using 
up the effervescent activity of children, who may healthily 
be left to themselves the rest of the time, to play or rest,, 
comparatively unwatched. 

Two rooms are indispensable, if there is any variety of 
age. It is desirable that one should be sequestrated to the 
quiet employments. A pianoforte is desirable, to lead the 
singing, and accompany the plays, gymnastics, frequent march- 
ings, and dancing, when that is taught, — which it should be. 
But a hand-organ which plays fourteen tunes will help to 
supply the want of a piano, and a guitar in the hands of a 
ready teacher will do better than nothing. 

Sometimes a genial mother and daughters might have^a 
Kindergarten, and devote themselves and the house to it, 
especially if they live in one of our beautiful country-towns 
or cities. The habit, in the city of New York, of sending 
children to school in an omnibus, hired to go round the city 
and pick them up, suggests the possibility of a Kindergarten 
in one of those beautiful residences up in town, where there 
is a garden before or behind the house. It is impossible to 
keep Kindergarten by the way. It must be the main business 
of those who undertake it ; for it is necessary that every in- 
dividual child should be borne, as it were, on the heart of 
the gardeners, in order that it be inspired with order, truth, 
and goodness. To develop a child from within outwards, we 
must plunge ourselves into its peculiarity of imagination and 
feeling. No one person could possibly endure such absorp- 
tion of life in labor unrelieved, and consequently two or three 
should unite in the undertaking in order to be able to relieve 
each other from the enormous strain on life. The compen- 
sations are, however, great. The charm of the various indi- 
viduality, and of the refreshing presence of conscience yet 
unprofaned, is greater than can be found elsewhere in this 
work-day world. Those w r ere not idle words which came 
from the lips of Wisdom Incarnate : — " Their angels do 
always behold the face of my Father : " " Of such is the 
kingdom of heaven." 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 25 



CHAPTER II. 

ROOMS, ETC. 

I have made an article, which I published in the " Atlan- 
tic Monthly" of November, 1862, my first chapter, because 
I cannot, in any better way, answer the general question, — 
What is a Kindergarten ? I will now proceed to make a 
Guide for the conduct of a Kindergarten ; in which I shall 
freely make use of what Madame Ronge has said in her 
" English Kindergarten," and Madame Marienholtz in her 
" Jardin des Enfans ; " but I shall not confine myself to 
them, for an American Kindergarten necessarily has its 
peculiarities. 

In the first place, we must think of the accommodations. 
These are not to be in the open air, as has been supposed 
by many, through misapprehension of the use of the word 
Kindergarten. But it is desirable that there should be a 
good play-ground attached to the rooms ; and Froebel 
thought it of very important religious influence that every 
child should have earth to cultivate, if it were only a foot 
square. 

Two rooms are indispensable, and if possible there should 
be three, all of good size, with good light and air : one room 
for music and plays, gymnastics, dancing, &c. ; another for 
the quieter mechanical employments, — pricking, weaving, 
sewing, moulding, folding, paper-cutting, sticklaying, and 
block -building ; and still another for drawing, writing, object- 
teaching, and learning to read. It is desirable that every 
child should have a box, if not a little desk, in order to learn 
2 



26 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

to keep things in order. When this cannot be done, the 
teachers must so arrange matters, as to have everything 
ready for every change ; that no time may be lost and no 
confusion arise. In my own Kindergarten, I arrange before- 
hand the chairs in the play-room in a solid square, into which 
the children march at the commencement of the exercises. 
Sitting in them, they sing their morning prayer or hymn, 
hear the reading, and take a singing lesson on the scale. 
Then they rise, and, taking up their chairs, march into the 
other room for their reading lessons, which are always in 
two classes, sometimes in three. They bring their chairs 
back again for luncheon, and then take them out for another 
lesson ; for in this room they have gymnastics, dancing, and 
the play, and need a clear space for all. They come back 
with their chairs, at the close of the exercises, to sing songs 
together before they disperse. Two of my rooms are car- 
peted. The other is smooth-floored for dancing, playing, 
and gymnastics. And, for the convenience of the gymnastics, 
it is well to paint, at convenient distances, little feet in the first 
position, as Dr. Dio Lewis has done in his gymnastic hall. 

When Kindergarten accommodations can be built ex- 
pressly, I would suggest that there should be a house with 
glass walls and partitions, at least above the wainscoting ; 
and that the wainscoting should be rather high and painted 
black, so that every child might have a piece of the black- 
board ; for it is easier for a child to draw with a chalk on a 
blackboard than with a slate and pencil. 

A house of glass, on the plan of the crystal palace, would 
be no more expensive than if built of brick. It Mould se- 
cure the light and sunshine, and make it easy for the su- 
perintendent to overlook the whole. It should be equably 
warmed throughout. My own Kindergarten is not in a glass 
house, but is the lower floor of a house which has three 
rooms, with a hall between two of the rooms ; a large china 
closet which I use for the children's dressing, as well as to 
store many things ; and beyond the third room, a bathing 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 27 

room, with every convenience. Rooms, hall, closet, and bath- 
ing room have all an east-south aspect, and are amply lighted. 
The room between the china closet and bathing room is longer 
than it is wide, and has blackboard painted on three sides of 
it, so that each child has a piece of blackboard. 

It is possible to keep a Kindergarten in two rooms, but 
not possible to keep it in one, if it is of any desirable size, 
or there is any variety of age in the children. A large play- 
ground and some garden is desirable. I am so fortunate as 
to have these in my house in Boston. 

There must be a musical instrument in every Kindergar- 
ten, of course. The only books which the children use are 
those in which they learn to read. Everything else must be 
taught by symbols, objects, and pictures, explained conver- 
sationally. 

One of the rooms it would be well to provide with flat 
box-desks, in which can be kept all the materials which each 
child uses, — slates and pencils, blocks, sticks, weaving and 
sewing materials, — and the children should be required to 
keep these in order. 

In my own Kindergarten I provide all the materials for 
their work and instruction, thus securing uniformity ; and 
it is better to do so always, and to charge a price covering 
the expense. It should be understood, from the first, that 
Kindergarten education is not cheap. 

As a Kindergarten requires several persons to keep it 
properly, a genial family, consisting of a mother and daugh- 
ters, of various accomplishments, might devote their whole 
house to it, preparing for the writing and drawing one large 
room with blackboards all round, whose area could be used 
for the playing, gymnastics, and dancing. 

When this new culture shall be appreciated for its whole 
w T orth, it will not be deemed extravagant for a whole family 
thus to devote their house, as well as their time, to make a 
Kindergarten the temporary home of a large company of 
children. 



28 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 



CHAPTER III. 



MUSIC. 



The first requisite to the Kindergarten is Music. The 
voice of melody commands the will of the child, or rather 
disarms the -caprice, which is the principle of disorder. Two 
hymns are given in this Guide with which to commence 
school, — one being the Lord's Prayer, set to cheerful music. 

But there should be regular scale singing, and if con- 
ducted by a teacher of tact, a ten minutes lesson may be 
given every day, and the interest be kept undiminished. 
The first lesson should be preceded by the teacher's drawing 
on the blackboard a ladder of eight steps, and then saying to 
the pupils, " Now listen to my voice, and see how it goes 
up these steps." She then sings the eight notes very clear- 
ly, pointing to each step of the ladder ; and runs her voice, 
with equal distinctness, down the descending scale. The 
children can then be asked to accompany the teacher in go- 
ing up and down the ladder, singing the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 
5, 6, 7, 8, instead of do, re, mi. There will doubtless be 
enough discords to be palpable to all ears, and these can be 
spoken of by the teacher, and a proposition made that every 
one who thinks he can go up and down the ladder alone, 
shall hold up a hand. Some may be able to do so, but a 
majority will fail. Some will not try at all. 

The teacher can then say, "Now I am going to teach 
you all to do it, — one step at a time. Let us all sing one" 
The piano is struck, and teacher and pupils all sing one. 
" Now let us go up a step, — one, two." Let this be repeated 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 29 

several times. Then stop, and say, " Now I am going to 
strike one of these notes and see if you know it." Strike 
two, and ask, " What is that, 1 or 2 ? " There may be dif- 
ference of opinion ; in which case, ask all to " hold up their 
hands who think it is 2, and then all who think it is 1." 
Tell which is right, and say, " Now let us all sing 2." Then 
say, " Now let us go down that step, — 2, 1 ; and now up 
again, — 1,2; now all hold up their hands who can sing 
1, 2, 1 ? " Select one after another to sing it alone with the 
piano, and after each has tried, let all sing with the teacher 
1, 2, 1, before another is asked to sing it. Then let all sing 
1, 1, 1 ; 2, 2, 2 ; 1, 1, 1. Go on in this way till all the 
eight notes are learned. They will be able to tell these 
notes, when struck upon the piano, much sooner than they 
will be able to strike them with their voices. And other 
exercises, every day calling upon them to name notes struck, 
— at first one note, afterwards combinations of notes. 

The following exercises were given in my Kindergarten 
in one year, which resulted in nearly all the children being 
able to sing them alone, and tell any notes struck. 

1st. — 1 21; 11, 2 2, 11; 1111, 222 2, 1111, 
2 12, &c. 

2d. — 1 2 3, 3 2 1; 1 3 3 1, 1 2 1, 2 3 2, 3 2 1. . 

3d.— 1 2 3 45, 5 43 2 1. 13 5,531,1551. 

4th. — 123456; 654321; 16, 61; 135 6. 

5th. — 1 23456 7, 7654321; 135 8, 853 1. 

6th. — 1234567 8, 87564321; 135 8. 

This exercise can be varied by repeating each note one 
two, three, or four times. 

7th. — 1 1 2, 2 2 3, 3 3 4, 4 4 5, 5 5 6, 7 7 8, 8 7 6 5 
43 2 1. 

8th. — 1 12, 33 4, 55 6, 778;8765432 1. 

9th. — 12, 121;2 3, 232;3 4, 343;4 5, 456; 
5 6, 5 6 7 ; 6 7, 6 7 8 ; 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 

10th. — 1 1,2 2, 1; 2 2,3 3, 2; 3 3, 4 4, 3; 4 4, 5 5, 4; &c. 

11th. — 13; 24; 35; 46; 57; 68; 8,6; 7,5; 6,4; 
5, 3 ; 4, 2 ; 3, 1. 



30 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

12th. — 1 35 8, 85 3 1; 1 4 68, 8641; 188 1. 

13th. — 1 1, 3 3 ; 5 5, 8 8 ; 8 8, 7 7, 6 6, 5 5, 4 4, 3 3, 
2 2, 1 1. 

14th. -12321; 23432; 34543; 45654; 
56765; 67876; 78765432 1. 

15th. — 121233;232344;343455;454 5 66; 
565 677; 67 67 8 8; 8 8 88; 7777; 6 6 6 6; 
5555;4444;3333;2222;1111;18;8 1. 

Besides these ten minutes on the scale, (which should not 
occur next to singing the hymn, but after some other exer- 
cise has intervened,) it is an excellent plan to let the Kin- 
dergarten close with singing songs by rote. The words 
should be simple, such as " The Cat and the Sparrow," 
and other pretty melodies to be found in the Pestalozzian 
Singing Book and the many compilations prepared for 
children. For it is well for the child not to go out of the 
natural octave, and to have the words of songs adapted to 
the childish capacity. Besides this singing, the piano-forte 
should be used to play marches, as the children go from one 
room to another to their different exercises. " Order is 
Heaven's first law," and music is the heavenly voice of 
order, which disposes to gentleness and regularity of mo- 
tion. As all the exercises change every quarter of an hour 
at least, this brings the marching to music as often ; and it 
Avill last one or two minutes, sometimes longer. The chil- 
dren get accustomed to rise at the sound of the piano, and 
it will be easy to make them silent during the music, espe- 
cially if it is hinted to them that soldiers always march 
in silence. Besides this, the piano is necessary for the 
gymnastics, and for the fanciful plays, which are always to 
be accompanied by descriptive songs. 

A few songs and plays are given in this Guide, which, if 
taken in turn, will recur not oftener than once in ten days. 
We subjoin a description of the plays. 

I will finish this chapter by a translation from a notice of 
" Enseignement Musical, d'apres Froebel, par Fred. Stern, 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 31 

prix, 2 francs : En vente a Bruxelles, rue de Vienne, 16, et 
a Paris, rue Fosses St. Victor, 35." " A man to be com- 
plete, should be master of linear and musical expression. 
Most of our education aims only to give him lingual expres- 
sion ; and drawing and music are considered accomplish- 
ments merely ! The divine art which enables us to repro- 
duce the human figure illuminated with the expression of 
the spirit, a mere accomplishment! * Music, the melodious 
expression of our most intimate thoughts, the colored reflec- 
tion of the heart, — a mere accomplishment ! 

" Life is sad, monotonous, earthy, without the arts. If a 
woman of the middle and higher classes especially, does not 
daily realize the higher life by knowledge of truth and love 
of beauty, what shall save her from the frivolity and ennui 
that gnaws away the heart, tarnishes the soul, and brings 
misfortune to the fireside? Every woman should be an 
artist, and make artists of her children, if 6he would do a 
woman's whole duty. Especially should the mother teach 
her children to improvise music, which can be done by pur- 
suing this method. 

" He commences by the study of the three sounds constitut- 
ing the major triad, and, as in the model gamut, or gamut of 
do, there are three similar triads, three perfect major chords, 
do-mi-sol, fa-la-do, and sol-si-re, we begin naturally with the 
central chord, do-mi-sol, which we name the master chord; 
for, in the model gamut of do, it is around this, as around a 
centre, that the two other triads balance themselves, the lower 
fifth, fal-la-do, and the higher fifth, sol-si-re. We can show 
the unity of plan between these three established notes, in 
all the possible changes. We thus introduce a fine variety 

* There is no excuse for its being so considered in Boston, now that Dr. 
Rimmer, the remarkable sculptor of the Falling Gladiator, has founded 
the true method of teaching to draw the human figure. It is indeed a 
method which it is not probable any person of less profound knowledge 
of the human figure than himself, (a practical surgeon as well as artist,) 
together with genius less bold and original, can conduct as he does; un- 
less he shall train such teachers. 



32 KINDERGARTEN" GUIDE. 

into the exercises, which permits the repetition of the same 
sounds and intervals, without causing fatigue or weariness to 
the child. 

" Scarcely have our pupils learned to sing or to repeat alone, 
at will, the three sounds do-mi-sol, when we have them mark 
them with pencils on the staff (key of sol) ; only as in the 
unity of tone there are yet the two other perfect chords, fa- 
la-do and sol-si-re, we let them write the three notes of the 
central chord with a red pencil, and reserve the three sounds 
of the chord on the left, (the lower or subdominant,) to be 
written with a yellow pencil, and the chord on the right, 
(higher or dominant,) with a blue pencil. On the other hand, 
for the appellative chords (dissonant,) made by the combina- 
tion of the chord sol-si-re, with one, two, and even three 
notes of the chord fa-la-do, we use green pencils (mixture 
of blue and yellow). For we would keep the theory in mind 
by visible signs, which act most powerfully upon the minds 
of children. 

" Then we pass to perfect minor chords, and terminate this 
first branch of our method by the study of the gamut. 

" Our pupil knows as yet only a single tone, — the tone of 
do, which we designate by the name of model tone ; — but 
all musicians are aware that to know well one tone, is to 
know them all, since they are all calculated on the model 
tone with which we began. The second part of our method 
will treat of the other tones, but it will prove no serious dif- 
ficulty to our pupil. 

" We have carefully avoided scientific terms, though doubt- 
less, by a learned terminology, we should have struck super- 
ficial minds more. But we address ourselves to the serious, 
who know that it is better to know a thing in itself, (in what 
constitutes it essentially,) without knowing its technology, 
than to know obscure terms and be ignorant of the thing. 

" Later, we shall initiate our pupil into the language gen- 
erally adopted by all treatises on harmony. We wish that 
one day he may be a distinguished harmonist, knowing mu- 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 33 

sical grammar at the foundation. It is strange that the 
study of grammar, so vigorously recommended for all other 
languages, is so entirely neglected in respect to musical 
language. The study of harmony seems to be reserved 
exclusively to artists ; and even among them, only the few 
who are occupied with composing devote themselves to it 
with any profoundness. It is to this culpable negligence that 
we must attribute the difficulties of musical education. 
Where is the intelligent musician who would dare to deny 
the happy results inseparable from the most profound study 
of music? The scholar would necessarily have to give much 
less time to know the art in the best manner, which is now 
accessible only to remarkable persons of strong will. The 
grammatical study of music should begin at the same time as 
all other studies, and soon music would become the language 
of all, instead of being reserved exclusively to the privileged. 

" Doubtless great reforms will be necessary to arrive at 
this result, and the spirit of routine which unhappily reigns 
everywhere will render such reforms difficult. 

" However, we found great hopes on the inevitable devel- 
opment of the method of Froebel, for the principles he lays 
down are of general application." 

I am myself so profoundly impressed with the importance 
of little children's beginning music in this manner, that, hav- 
ing found a teacher who is capable of it, I intend, another 
year, to have extra hours for those who will commence in- 
strumental music, in my own Kindergarten ; so that each 
child can have a lesson every day, and only play under the 
eye of the teacher until quite expert. 



2 * 



34 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PLAYS, GYMNASTICS, AND DANCING. 

In playing The Pigeon-house, the teacher, who should 
always play with the children, takes three quarters of the 
number, and forms them into a circle, while the other quar- 
ter remains in the middle, to represent the pigeons. 

The circle is the pigeon-house, and sings the song, begin- 
ning with the words : 

" We open the pigeon-house again," 

while, standing still, they all hold up their joined hands, so 
as to let all the pigeons out at the word " open ; " and, as the 
circle goes round singing, 

" And let all the happy flutterers free, 
They fly o'er the fields and grassy plain. 
Delighted with glorious liberty," 

the pigeons run round, waving their hands up and down to 
imitate flying. At the word " return," in the line 

"And when they return from their joyous flight," 
the joined hands of those in circle are lifted up again, and 
the pigeons go in. Then the pigeon-house closes round them, 
bowing their heads, and singing, 

" We shut up the house and bid them good-night," 

which is repeated while the circle swings off and again comes 
together bowing. 

The play can be done over until all in turn have been 
pigeons. 

In playing Hare in the Hollow, a fourth of the chil- 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 35 

dren sit in the middle, on their hands and feet, while the 
rest, in circle, go round singing the three verses, and when 
the words "jump and spring," in the last verse, occur, the 
circle stops, and the joined hands are lifted up, and all the 
children leap out and around, on their hands and feet, (not 
knees,) — while the last lines are repeated twice. 

In The Cuckoos, a circle is formed, or two concentric 
circles, and four children are put in the four corners of the 
room to enact cffckoos. The cuckoos sing " cuckoo," and 
those children in the circle answer ; and when the words of 
the song indicate that the cuckoos should join the children, 
all four burst into the circle, and those who are found at their 
right hands become cuckoos the next time. 

Almost like this last is the play of The Bees ; one child 
being put in the corner as a drone, and at the word " Be- 
ware" the drone breaks into the circle. 

The Wind-mill is done by dividing the children into com- 
panies of four, and letting them cross right hands and go 
round, and then cross left hands and go round the opposite 
way. By a change of the word wind-mill to water-wheel, 
the same music will serve for another play, in which there 
is a large circle formed, and then four or six spokes are 
made by six crossing hands in the middle, and then one or 
more children lengthening each spoke, and joining it to the 
circle, which forms the rim of the wheel. This is a more 
romping play than either of the foregoing, as the different 
velocities of those who are at the centre and circumference 
make it nearly impossible to have the motions correspond in 
time ; but it is great fun, and serves for a change. 

The Clappers in the Corn-mill is made by one or by 
two concentric circles, going round as they sing the words ; 
and the beauty of it consists in their minding the pauses and 
clapping in time. Whenever there are concentric circles, as 
is often necessary, when there are many children, the circles 
should move in different directions, and all circular motions 
must be frequently reversed. 



36 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

In The Sawyers, the children stand facing each other in 
couples, in a circle, and move their joined hands from shoul- 
der to shoulder in time to the music of the first verse. In 
singing the second verse, they skip round with their part- 
ners. 

In The Wheelbarrow, they are also arranged in couples, 
back to front ; the front child leaning over to imitate the bar- 
row, and stretching his hands behind him, which the child at 
his back takes as if to wheel. When the words are repeated 
the children reverse. 

In The Coopers, the children, who form the barrels or 
hogshead, stand back to front in a circle, each taking hold of 
the waist of the one before him. The coopers walk round 
outside in time, at every third step pounding on the shoulder 
of the child nearest him in the barrel. When the word 
"around" comes, the barrel must begin to turn, and the coop- 
ers stand still, pounding on the shoulders of each child as 
he passes. 

In The Little Master of Gymnastics, each child in 
turn stands in the middle of the circle, and makes any mo- 
tion he chooses, which all the rest imitate. 

Equal Treading is done in a circle, or in two con- 
centric circles. 

In We like to go a-roving, the children march 
round freely within sound of the music, singing and keep- 
ing time carefully. 

In The Fishes, the children are arranged as in the pigeon- 
house ; and at the words " swimming," " above," " below," 
" straight," and " bow," the fishes must make corresponding 
motions, while the circle that forms the pond goes round 
singing. 

In The Pendulum, the children follow each other in a 
circle, moving one arm before them, like a pendulum, in time 
to the music, and with a strongly marked motion, while they 
all sing the song. When one arm is tired, the other can be 
used for the pendulum. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 37 

Let the children also follow one another in a circle to play 
The Weathercock. Beforehand, the points of the com- 
pass should be defined in the room, and the children must 
point, as they sing, " North, South, East, West." 

The prettiest of all the plays is The Peasant. All join 
hands and sing, going round in time with the music, when 
they come to the words, " Look, 'tis so — so does the peasant," 
they must make the corresponding motion. In the first verse, 
they make believe, as the children say, to hold up the apron 
with one hand, and throw the seed with the other. In the 
second verse, they kneel on one knee at the same words, and 
make believe hold the corn with one hand and cut with the 
other. In the third verse, they put the doubled fists at the 
left shoulder, and make the motion of thrashing. In the 
fourth verse, they make the motion of holding and shaking a 
sieve. In the fifth, they kneel on one knee and rest the head 
in the hand ; in the sixth, they jump straight up and down, 
turning to each point of the compass, till the chorus, " la, la," 
begins, when each takes his next neighbor for a partner, and 
they skip round the room. 

Some other plays, accompanied by musical words, can be 
found in the exercise books for the common schools ; but 
there is much room for invention here, and perhaps it would 
be possible to put' among these plays many of the national 
dances of the peasants of Europe. 

But while the music and song will prevent disagreeable 
romping, care should be taken that the ease and fun of play 
should not be sacrificed to the music and singing. The plays 
must be recreation ; and may often be commuted for a run 
in the open air, when the weather will permit. 

Every day, too, it is desirable that there should be a quar- 
ter of an hour's gymnastics. Dr. Dio Lewis's free gymnas- 
tics, and his exercises with dumb-bells, rings, and wands, 
made small to suit infantile hands, can be alternately run 
through, to the sound of music. In my own Kindergarten, 
a graduate of Dr. Lewis's Normal School conducts these ex- 



38 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

ercises ; and here a considerable degree of precision can be 
aimed at, without danger of destroying the amusement. 
Children like the effect of the precision. This exercise may 
also occasionally be changed for a run, or for a game of bags 
in the open air. After some degree of skill is obtained on 
the dumb-bells, wands, and rings, the game of Bags can be 
introduced ; but at first it is alarming to little children, and 
it always requires so large an area, that it is best to be played 
in the open air. 

Dancing is another exercise for the Kindergarten. In my 
own, I do not very rigidly give the positions and steps, but 
teach a simple skip forward and sideways ; and then teach 
them ladies-cnain, right and left, balancing to partners, and 
other simple evolutions, so that they may have cotillons and 
contra-dances as one form of exercise. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. ' 39 



CHAPTER V. 

BLOCKS, STICKS, AND PEAS. 

Froebel has made a great point of block-building in his 
system. He invented what he has called Six Gifts, in as 
many different boxes. As he took infants-at-nurse into his 
Kindergarten, making it an object to teach mothers and 
nurses how to tend babies, so as to amuse them without 
rasping their nerves or spoiling their tempers, his First 
Gift was a box of six soft balls, of the primary and sec- 
ondary colors ; and his Second Gift a wooden ball, two 
cubes, and a cylinder. These gifts I shall not farther de- 
scribe, as they have been published in Boston, with small 
manuals in each box, showing how they are to be used ; 
and are for children in the nursery rather than in the Kin- 
dergarten. 

But the other four gifts are indispensable to any Kin- 
dergarten. The Third Gift consists of eight cubes, one 
inch in dimension ; the Fourth, of sixteen parallelopipedons 
two inches by one, and half an inch thick ; the Fifth and 
Sixth, not only of such cubes and parallelopipedons, but of 
solid triangles, some being half the inch cube, and some a 
quarter of it ; also cubes divided horizontally, and parallel- 
opipedons divided lengthwise. 

Froebel's plan was to have the eight cubes given to the 
child first ; and to have him led by imitation and sugges- 
tion to make these into the forms of chairs, sofas, monu- 
ments, columns, stalls for horses, tanks, &c, &c. Also into 
symmetrical forms, which may be called patterns for car- 
pets. Each box adds new material for greater varieties 



40 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

of form till at last quite elaborate houses can be represented, 
and very complicated forms of beauty. The child is to be 
left to his own spontaneity as much as possible, but the 
teacher is to suggest means of carrying out whatever plan 
or idea the child has. What is cultivating about the ex- 
ercise is, that the child makes or receives a plan, and then 
executes it ; has a thought, and embodies it in a form. 

But something more can be done with the blocks. They 
can be made symbolical of the personages and objects of a 
story. Thus even with the eight blocks, five may be a flock 
of sheep, one the shepherd, one a wolf, who is seen in the 
distance, and who comes to steal a sheep, and one the shep- 
herd's dog who is to defend the sheep against the wolf. 
"When all the blocks come to be used, much more compli- 
cated dramas may be represented. The teacher should 
set an example, as, for instance, thus: "I am going to 
build a' light-house, so ; " (she piles up some blocks and 
leaves openings near the top, which she says are " the lan- 
tern part where the lights are put ; " near the light-house are 
a number of blocks, rather confusedly laid together, of which 
she says,) " These are rocks, which are very dangerous for 
ships, but which are scarcely ever seen, because the water 
dashes over them, especially when there is a storm, or when 
the night is dark ; and that is the reason the light-house is 
put here. Whenever sailors see a light-house, they know 
there is danger where it stands ; and so they steer their 
ships away from the place. Look here ! here is a ship," 
(and she constructs with other blocks something which she 
calls a ship, or schooner, or sloop, representing respective- 
ly the number of masts which characterize each kind of 
vessel,) " And there is a pilot standing upon it who has seen 
the light-house, and is turning the ship another way." 

Having built her story, she will now call upon the chil- 
dren to build something. Some will imitate her ; others 
will have plans of their own. As soon as one has finished, 
he or she must hold up a hand, and the teacher will call 



KINDEEGAETEN GUIDE. 41 

upon as many as there is time for, to explain their construc- 
tions. There is no better way for a teacher to learn what 
is in children, their variety of mental temperament and im- 
agination, than by this playing with blocks. Some will be 
prosaic and merely imitative ; some will show the greatest 
confusion, and the most fantastic operations of mind ; others 
the most charming fancies ; and others inventive genius. 
But there will always be improvement, by continuing the 
exercise ; and it is a great means of development into self- 
subsistence and continuity of thought. In my own Kin- 
dergarten, a gifted teacher has made this block-building a 
means of teaching a great variety of things, and among 
other things, Natural History. A half an hour nearly every 
day is given to it. I have a table twelve feet long and 
four or five feet broad, and before the children come, she 
sets up along the length of the table, a variety of construc- 
tions, representing woods, rocks, bushes, or whatever she 
wants as the haunts of the animals whose habits she wishes 
to describe. She then invents some story, or incidents, 
that shall involve the facts which she means to convey. 
Twenty-five or thirty children can stand or kneel round 
the table ; and when they come up, she explains what she 
has built, — about which they are very curious. They will 
listen to her for a quarter of an hour, while their eyes are 
filled with these blocks, which assume, to their quick im- 
aginations, whatever form she may choose to give them, 
when, if she were to speak without these material things 
before their eyes, it would be quite impossible to command 
their silent attention so long. When she has done, she says, 
" Now you build ! " and as all have boxes before them, each 
containing about twenty-five blocks, they immediately begin 
to build. What they are taught by the teacher reappears, 
day after day, in their constructions, mingled with circum- 
stances of their own invention. When their stories are 
very fantastic, they are received by the teacher as jokes. 
When there is attempt to represent realities, there is oppor- 



42 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

tunity for correcting erroneous impressions that have been 
given, and it is pretty to see how much they learn by this 
amusement. The teacher preserves a certain method in 
what she represents. She sometimes divides the table into 
Asia and Africa ; and occasionally adds Australia, America, 
and Europe ; and keeps her animals in their own quarter 
of the world. If any child has an animal in his or her story, 
she is asked of what country it is ; and if several animals, of 
different countries, are in the story, a question arises of how 
it can be ; and sometimes a menagerie is imagined to account 
for inconsistencies of geography. It is obvious to the slight- 
est reflection how much can be taught in this way. But 
the teacher must be well posted in Natural History, and is 
obliged to read books of travels, &c, to get anecdotes. 
We have found the works of J. G. Woods, " Common Ob- 
jects of the Country," "My Feathered Friends," and es- 
pecially the large work he edits, called " Routledge's Illus- 
trated Natural History," very useful. 

In order to make these lessons in Natural History still 
more useful, we have some large cards, imported from Eu- 
rope, on which birds and other animals are represented in 
the proportions of their size ; and these are exhibited when 
the animals are spoken of. In order to impress the forms 
still more strongly, I draw the animals on paper, and let the 
children prick their outlines, — which forms another exercise, 
and is very much delighted in by the children. They thus 
have something to carry home which they have done them- 
selves. 

I have said that Froebel's First and Second Gifts are pub- 
lished in Boston. I think the other Gifts — that is the Third 
and Fourth, together with some of Fifth and Sixth, will 
presently be published in one box, with some lithographic 
plates of the forms they can make. For it is indispensable 
that every child in a Kindergarten should have a box of 
blocks ; and the book of plates would enable them sometimes 
to play with the blocks when the. teacher cannot be supeiv 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 43 

intending them. The box and book would also be quite a 
resource for children at home, especially after they have 
learnt how to play from a good teacher. All is accomplished 
when the child makes a plan, embodies it, and gives an ac- 
count of what he has done. 

But blocks may also be used to give the elements of 
arithmetic and geometry, as I shall show in the proper place. 

STICK-LAYING. 

Barley straws can be used with much advantage to form a 
pleasant amusement for children. They should be cut into 
pieces of an inch, two inches, three inches, four inches, five 
inches, and six inches ; and each of the children should have 
a hundred in a box. They can then be taught to lay them 
so as to make windows, doors, houses, fences, and the various 
rectilinear figures, regular and irregular polygons. They 
can make these figures with their barley-straws, and then 
copy them on their slates, ene side of which it is a good plan 
to have marked with a steel point in squares of half an inch, 
or a third of an inch dimension ; for there is nothing so 
hard in drawing as to make a straight line. Several of the 
capital letters can be made by these barley-straws, as A, E, 
F, H, I, K, L, M, N, T, V, W, X, Y, Z. * Then these can 
be copied upon the slate, and the children will soon add the 
rest of the letters on their slates, making the curves with 
their pencils. Froebel used stiff wooden sticks ; but I men- 
tion barley-straws, because I have found it difficult to get 
the straight wooden sticks. 

PEA-WORK. 

But hard wooden sticks, sharpened at both ends, are 
necessary for pea-work. The object, in this kind of work, is 
to make frames of houses, chairs, tables, &c, by using peas, 
first dried, and then soaked in water. The peas make points 



44 KINDERGARTEN" GUIDE. 

of union for the sticks. Among Froebel's gifts a box of 
sticks and peas is found, and it would pay any toy-dealer to 
get the box up in this country. The best way to prevent in 
children the habit of destruction, is to give them means for 
construction. 

The first step in pea-work is, as usual, the most simple : 
a certain number of sticks and peas are given to the child, 
and the question is asked, What can you form ? When the 
teacher has ascertained, by having heard the children's an- 
swers to her question, what is the peculiar individuality of 
each child, she commences with the most simple forms. She 
takes a stick, and places at each end a pea, and asks what is 
this like ? The answers will be various : a candle, a pin, a 
pillar, the letter I, and the round of a chair. On this last 
hint she may proceed and form two rounds in the same 
way, and then set sticks in the peas at right angles, and at 
last unite these so as to make a square. This will become 
the foundation of the chair. Then four more sticks may be 
stuck into the same peas, vertically at right angles with the 
others, and these can be united by horizontal lines represent- 
ing the seat of the chair. Then by means of three more 
sticks the outline of the back of the chair may be made. 
Many frames can be made on the basis of a square, among 
which is a barn. Again, there can be a triangle for the 
basis, on which can be constructed a pyramid, an obelisk, a 
church spire, a prism. At first a limited number of sticks 
can be given to each child, afterwards an unlimited number. 

For this pea-work special preparation and strict order are 
required ; the sticks must be properly pointed and graduated 
in length, the peas properly softened, or the child will not 
be benefited. 

We shall append a plate to give an idea of the pea-work, 
and a i'ew patterns for the weaving spoken of in the next 
chapter. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 45 



CHAPTER VI. 



MANIPULATIONS. 



Block-building, stick-laying, and pea-work follow the 
more violent kinds of exercise, and seem to the children only 
forms of playing. While the former cannot fill up more 
than a quarter of each hour, the latter should not do more 
than fill up another quarter. Some form of manipulation 
can take up another quarter. 

First is Sewing.- — On perforated board should be drawn 
(both sides) simple rectilinear forms, such as spades, shovels, 
saws, watering-pots, bee-hives, wigwams, guns, drums, bar- 
racks, the United States flag, &c, and the children will learn 
to use a needle and thread with great pleasure, especially if 
different colored threads are used. As they become more 
skilful, more complicated forms and cross-stitches can be 
taught ; and by and by canvas can be substituted for the 
perforated board. Plain sewing can also be taught, the girls 
having dolls' clothes to sew, and the boys bags for their fish- 
ing-tackle, pincushions, &c. 

2. Weaving. — Another quiet amusement is to weave 
into paper, cut for the purpose, narrow strips of card-board 
of different colors. Colored cards of various colors can be 
bought by the thousand, and cut up carefully into strips an 
eighth of an inch broad. Each color should be in a different 
compartment of the teacher's box, and the children be allowed 
to choose their own colors. For a time, a simple checker-work 
is all that can be accomplished. By and by different patterns 
may be proposed by the teacher for imitation by the children. 
It will be necessary to cut the paper into which the card- 



46 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

board is to be slipped, which is a nice process, as the cuts 
must be very exact. Possibly it might be done by ma- 
chinery. But in my own Kindergarten we have done it our- 
selves, doubling the paper and using the scissors, and making 
the cuts correspond in size with the strips of card-board. 
Any colored paper may be used, but I have always used 
white. Among Froebel's Gifts is a box of papers already 
cut, and strips of paper which he proposes should be slipped 
into thin pieces of wood and drawn through according to the 
pattern proposed. But we found that it was much better to 
have stiff slips than to have paper with the apparatus of the 
wooden needle. 

When Kindergartens become as common as they certainly 
will, as soon as the method is known enough to be appre- 
ciated, prepared boxes of cut paper and slips of colored 
card-board will doubtless come into commerce, and boxes of 
perforated board, with the patterns already drawn on both 
sides, all ready for the needle. 

3. Pricking. — Another very attractive thing is for the 
teacher to draw the forms of birds and animals on paper for 
children to prick. They are greatly delighted to hold these 
pricked forms upon the window-pane, and see the lines of 
light which they have made, and also to see the raised work 
on the other side of the paper. 

A teacher can easily furnish herself with a large quantity 
of patterns by tracing, with a fine pen, upon engineer's cam- 
bric, from "Jardine's Naturalists' Library," or, still better, 
from " Routleclge's Illustrated Natural History," edited by 
Woods, the forms of beasts and birds, with more or less detail 
of feathers in the case of the birds. From these patterns, 
tracings can be made upon paper. If children are taught a 
good deal about the habits, &c, of birds and beasts, it will 
be a very good plan to choose for the pricking the forms of 
what has been talked about, so that they may have exact 
ideas of these forms ; and while they are pricking, what has 
been taught may be brought again to their memory by the 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 47 

teacher. A good deal of care should be given to meet the 
fancies of the children, in distributing the forms to be pricked, 
so that the interest may be kept vivid ; and I suppose it is 
needless to say, that not only must they weave, prick, or sew 
but a quarter of an hour at a time, but they should not do 
all these things on the same day, or oftener than twice a 
week. 

To make the interest of the pricking greater, I color the 
forms on the patterns which I make for them, according to 
Nature, and allow my children to have them before their 
eyes while they are pricking. This coloring is very simple 
and unshaded ; and I find that some of the children, who 
have paint-boxes at home, color the pricked forms, when 
they get home, according to their recollection of the pattern. 
It would be a formidable thing to undertake to superintend 
the coloring at the Kindergarten ; but if one had assistants 
enough this also could be done, at least in the case of the 
older ones. Newton's albumen colors, if they were a little 
cheaper, would serve nicely ; but, at all events, it would be 
a very great task for the teachers, and small children would 
succeed so indifferently that it is quite a question whether it 
would be worth while for them to attempt anything so diffi- 
cult. Nothing should be undertaken, in the Kindergarten, in 
which there is not a fair chance of some considerable success, 
for it is not a good habit to fail in anything which is seri- 
ously attempted ; and one great reason for superintending 
children in what they do is, that an adult's judgment is 
necessary for the choice of what is attempted. The habit 
of success produces perseverance. 

4. Paper Folding and Cutting. — This is an amuse- 
ment which may lead to beautiful results. Billings, one of 
our most gifted artists, first developed his genius with paper 
and scissors. Exquisite delicacy and rich invention were 
displayed in his paper cuttings, even when he was but 
five or six years of age. Let each child be provided with 
a pair of scissors, and a square piece of thin paper. Also 



48 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

have the same yourself, and let them imitate you, as you go 
through the following process : — 

1. Lay the paper straight on the table. 2. Unite two 
opposite corners and crease the fold, which will make a tri- 
angle. 3. Hold the doubled corners in the fingers and unite 
the other two corners, by which a smaller triangle is pro- 
duced with one side closed and the other open. 4. Turn 
one of the folds to the right, the other to the left, keeping the 
corners, where they are all united, between the forefinger 
and the thumb, and cut the paper at the base, so as to form 
an acute-angled isosceles triangle. 5. Now cut into all the 
creases as they are folded together, and into the edges, mak- 
ing little diamonds, or any kind of cuts, and gouging out 
small pieces. 6. Unfold, and a symmetrical pattern will be 
found to be cut. 

These first manipulations can be easily performed by the 
youngest children. When done, the little figures are col- 
lected, put into an envelope, and taken home. 

It can be proposed that a child should cut in paper shapes 
of ivy leaves, and other flowers ; of birds, animals, &c. At 
first, models for imitation can be given; but' from the first, 
children should be incited to invent forms. Upon a paper 
simply folded once; cups, vases, beautiful bowls, with two 
handles, can be produced ; and where there is genius for 
producing forms of beauty, it will not fail to show itself very 
soon. Symmetrical forms being insured by the folding, 
the smallest child can accomplish something, which will 
please the eye and encourage to new efforts. 

Paper folding can be made the means of developing geo- 
metrical power in children, as will be shown in the proper 
place. 

5. Moulding. — This is the highest form of manipula- 
tion, and one which is very fascinating to children, who 
often make forms with mud and snow in their out-door play. 

The material, whether clay, rice, wax, or whatever else 
may be employed, must be previously prepared, and always 
kept in a plastic state. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 49 

Clay is the least expensive material, but it must always be 
kept wet, and it is cold to the hands. Wax, prepared with 
oil, is more expensive, but far cleaner than clay ; and it has 
the advantage of preserving the forms moulded, while the 
clay shrinks and cracks when it dries. 

The material being prepared, each child is supplied either 
with a small flat board, slate, cloth, or strong paper, to cover 
the part of the table used ; a small blunt elastic knife, and a 
portion of the plastic material. The child is first left to 
pursue the bent of its own inclinations, — generally the roller 
and the ball are the first objects attempted, — in their for- 
mation the child finds great delight. Irregular forms are, 
however, the easiest. The children are encouraged to 
imitate birds' nests, baskets, candlesticks, and various fruits : 
apples, pears, strawberries, also some vegetables, and espe- 
cially flowers ; — whenever it is possible let them have the 
natural objects before them. Afterwards models of animals 
are given for imitations ; and they are encouraged to make 
parts of the human figure, — fingers, hands, ears, noses, for 
which they have models in each other. I have known a boy 
not twelve years old, who would take an engraved head, and 
mould one by it, in which the likeness would be remark- 
able ; — he used wax and a pin. 

To make forms from the hint of an engraving, is a little 
above imitation ; and it is to be remembered that we do not 
wish the children to stop with imitations. Let them go on 
and invent forms, beautiful vases, pitchers, &c. When they 
begin to make heads and human figures, a teacher, who un- 
derstands the principles of drawing, can bring to their notice 
the proportions of the human figure and face found in nature, 
which make ideal beauty. Many a heaven-destined sculptor 
will find himself out, in the Kindergarten. 

6. Drawing and Painting. — Mr. Sheldon, in his 
" Elementary Instruction," has given, in detail, " Krusi's Sys- 
tem of Inventive Drawing," which has its merits ; but Miss 
M. A. Dwight, in the pages of " Barnard's Journal of Edu- 
3 



50 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

cation," has presented some important considerations in favor 
of a different method for those whose final object is Art, — 
and that is the object always to be aimed at. 

In my own Kindergarten, I found that the lessons of 
Madame Ronge's Guide were so uninteresting to my children, 
that I abandoned that course, and got from Dr. Riramer, the 
sculptor, (who has given, in his own drawing-school in Bos- 
ton, a new idea of what is meant by teaching drawing,) some 
elementary sketches involving the proportions of the human 
figure. My assistant draws on the black-board line by line, 
which the children copy on their slates, very much interested, 
as they go on, to know what is coming. 

Light-houses, cottages, barns, &c, around which are figures 
of men, drawn sometimes by five single, sometimes by five 
double lines, surmounted by a large dot for a head, and in all 
attitudes, particularly in attitudes of action, excite the imagi- 
nation to invention, and give a freedom of hand, as well as 
of fancy, which, I am inclined to think, is a better beginning 
than geometrical lines and angles. I find that it wakes up 
interest in every child. 

I speak, however, only of the beginnings for little children. 
Krusi's exercises can come by and by, and are very naturally 
connected with stick-laying, and make, perhaps, the only 
method of drawing which can be introduced into the public 
primary schools, where classes are so very large. Every 
mechanic needs such drawing lessons, as well as perspective, 
taught by Schmidt's practical method. 

My plan is, however, more favorable to the attainment of 
picturesque drawing, and especially to the representation of 
the human figure, in which art culminates. 

I have already said, that coloring cannot be easily intro- 
duced into the Kindergarten. The most advanced class, 
however, might connect it with the lessons on color, which are 
prominent in the object teaching. Paper, ruled in small 
squares, might be used to teach children to lay on an equal 
tint. First, only the smallest square should be covered, and 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 51 

the colors can be arranged according to the harmonies. Then 
four squares could be covered with one color, and so on. 
Ruskin's " Elements of Drawing with Colors," will furnish a 
teacher with good hints how to proceed. But, of course, this 
is not the place to give a manual of painting. 



52 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. 

Harmonious development is Froebel's idea. Hence, 
although the physical should never be sacrificed, and comes 
first into view, in the scheme of Kindergarten culture, it is 
not to be exclusive. Children grow in stature and physical 
force, all the better for having their hearts and minds opened 
in the beginning. It is desirable to have a child become 
conscious of right and wrong, in reference to eating and 
drinking, quite early ; though temptation to excess should be 
removed, as a general thing, by giving them simple whole- 
some food. In any case where children may not go home at 
noon, and there is a luncheon, some simple fruit, like apples 
or grapes, together with milk biscuits, or plain bread and but- 
ter, make the best repast, satisfying hunger, and not stimulat- 
ing the palate unduly. I am sometimes shocked at the kind 
of luncheon children bring to the Kindergarten, it shows such 
lamentable ignorance of physiological laws. The practical 
value of the beautiful symbol of the origin of evil, which 
stands as the first word of the sacred volume, is enhanced, by 
its having the form in which temptation first assails the child. 
No deeper interpretation of it is foreclosed by our presenting 
it at first, to children, just as it stands. The forbidden fruit 
is that which will hurt the child ; i. e., give it the disease 
which by and by may make death a merciful release from 
pains intolerable to bear. Serpents have no higher function 
than eating ; but human beings live to know and love and do 
good, and so ought not to eat everything that is pleasant 
to the eyes, — but to stop, as Eve did not, and inquire 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 53 

whether it is God or the mere animal which is man's proper 
adviser. Our appetite is the serpent, our thought is from 
God. A child understands all this very early, if* it is thus 
simply presented ; and it suggests the beginning of his moral 
life. The lesson can soon be generalized. Whatever wrong 
things he is tempted to do, whatever his conscience tells him 
not to do, is " forbidden fruit ; " his desire to do it is the ser- 
pent, and if he falls, it is the old folly of Eve, who preferred 
the advice of the lower being to the command of God, al- 
ways given in the Conscience. 

I have known a child, to whom this story was early read 
and interpreted, to whom it seemed to become a " guard an- 
gelic " over her life. The moral nature responded to it at 
once, and a suggestion that a desire was perhaps the voice of 
tlie serpent, was always quite enough to arouse the guardian 
angel — Conscience — to a watch and ward of the severest 
character. It precluded the necessity of present punishment 
and the fear of future retribution, (with which a child should 
never be terrified.) 

There is such a thing as making children, I will not say 
too conscientious, but too conscious ; and this is often done 
by well-meaning parents and teachers, who make them look 
upon themselves personally as objects of God's pleasure or 
displeasure. This will be avoided by using a symbol, like 
the story of Adam and Eve, which touches the imagination, 
and saves them from the reactions of personal pique. A ju- 
dicious teacher, who knows how to paraphrase as she reads, 
and to skip what is mere prosaic statement, (and no one who 
cannot do this, is fit to read to children,) can make use of 
many other passages of the Old and New Testament, and of 
" Pilgrim's Progress," to give to children the whole doctrine 
of religious self-control, and inspire them to the highest moral 
issues. 

Spiritual life, strictly speaking, can only be prepared for 
by the best education. Its characteristic and essence consists 
in that action of the heart and reason which does not come 



54 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

from human prompting. But it can be prepared for, by 
awakening in the child such an aspiration and felt necessity 
for virtue, as well as general idea of God, as makes prayer 
to the Father of Spirits spontaneous and inevitable. I am 
in the habit of speaking of God to children as the Giver of 
love and goodness, and of the power of thought and action, 
rather than as the Creator of the outward world, and have 
found that the tyrannizing unity of the soul's instinct did the 
rest. 

I commence the exercises of the Kindergarten with the 
singing of a hymn, — and every other day it is the Lord's 
prayer, just so far transposed as to suit it to the lovely mu- 
sic to which it is set in this volume, and which interprets the 
meaning to their hearts. Now and then I ask them if " our 
Father's " being " in heaven " means, that He is not on 
earth ? — and when they all say, No, (as they always do say,) 
I reply, " No, indeed ; He is everywhere, and inside of us 
all, but spreads out into heaven and future time, where 
He is building mansions for his dear good children." As they 
always tell me, when I ask what hallowed means, that they 
do not know, I explain it as meaning that when we say God, 
we should always think and feel how dear and good He is, 
and speak His name with love. The doing the will on earth 
as in heaven is, as they know, acting right, and like as the 
angels would if they lived on earth. Conscience assures 
this to them, and that to do so would make the kingdom of 
heaven on earth. Trespasses I explain, showing them how, 
in meddling with other children's things, hurting others, or 
any wrong-doing, they trespass against God's kingdom, which 
is the prevalence of goodness. On being first asked what a 
" trespass " is, they will themselves define it very well, often 
by examples ; and they can be led to see how wrong it is 
to make another do wrong, because that is " leading them 
into temptation." I do not let the Lord's prayer come every 
day, but alternate it with the song on brotherly love and 
other virtues. Occasionally, when there is a striking viola- 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 55 

tion of the principles sung by the lips, I say to them that 
doing the right thing is the soul's song, which is as sweet to 
our heavenly Father, as the best music we can hear is to us. 

All reading to children should be more or less symbolical, 
and calculated to elevate the imagination, whose highest use 
is to represent the spiritual in the forms of beauty for our 
moral culture. In all the child's literature, with which our 
book-stores are flooded, there is very little which is truly 
imaginative (for I draw a distinction between the fanciful 
and imaginative). Nothing is worthy to be called imagi- 
native that does not involve an idea, in the strictest sense 
of that word. The parables of the Old and New Testa- 
ments are embodiments of ideas, and touch this master-spring 
of the human mind — Imagination. So is the Pilgrim's 
Progress ; and so are many fairy tales, and many mythologi- 
cal stories of Greece, India, and the North. I have found 
an English book, called the " Heroes of Asgard," invaluable ; 
and " The Story without an End " is a beautiful reading-book 
for children, in whose pages they find themselves in a maze 
of beautiful images and picturesque words, waking echoes 
that do not sleep again, but give presentiments and foretaste 
" of the perfect good and fair." 

In my own Kindergarten, I have the advantage of a 
teacher who knows how to read children's characteristics of 
temperament and imagination unerringly, and to read to them 
naturally. When she reads, as she does, a quarter of an hour 
every day, for moral culture, she always addresses herself 
to the youngest of the class ; and it is equally interesting to 
the oldest of them. If attention wanders, she calls the name 
of the wanderer as if she were talking, and the result is the 
most complete general attention. As she never goes to the 
reading without having previously read the lesson over to 
herself, the book is merely her note-book for discourse as it 
were. Her favorite books are fables, fairy stories, the " He- 
roes of Asgard," Mrs. Farrar's " Robinson Crusoe," " Sand- 
ford and Merton," u Salzmann's Elements of Morality." This 



56 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

exercise is very interesting to a spectator or listener. The 
children are drawn up close before her in a solid square, 
every eye seeking hers ; and their spontaneous exclamations 
and interlocutions prove how completely she has them, heart 
and soul, in her keeping for the time being. 

But while by this and other means, a large measure of 
moral and religious consciousness may be educated, we must 
beware of overstraining in this direction. Children who are 
made too conscientious become timid and morally weak, and 
often exhibit painful reactions. Coarse teachers often do 
great harm,, with the best intentions, to finely strung moral 
organizations. Encouragement to good should altogether 
predominate over warning and fault-finding. It is often bet- 
ter, instead of blaming a child for short-coming, or even 
wrong-doing, to pity and sympathize, and, in a hopeful voice, 
speak of it as something which the child did not mean to do, 
or at least was sorry for as soon as done ; suggesting at the 
same time, perhaps, how it can be avoided another time. 
Above all things, an invariable rule in moral education is 
not to throw a child upon self-defence. The movement tow- 
ards defending one's self and making excuses, is worse than 
almost any act of overt wrong. Let the teacher always ap- 
pear as the friend who is saving or helping the child out of 
evil, rather than as the accuser, judge, or executioner. An- 
other principle should be, not to confound or put upon the 
same level the trespasses against the by-laws of the Kinder- 
garten, made for the teacher's convenience, and those against 
the moral laws of the universe. The desirableness of the 
by-laws that we make for. our convenience can be shown at 
times when the children are all calm, and their attention can 
be drawn to the subject ; and if these regulations are broken, 
all that is necessary will be to ask if it is kind and loving 
to do such things ? But it must never be forgotten that 
natural conscience always suffers when artificial duties are 
imposed. Hence the immoral effect of formality and super- 
stition. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 57 

In a well-regulated Kindergarten there should be no pun- 
ishments, but an understanding should be had with parents 
that sometimes the child is to be sent home for a day, or at 
least for some hours. The curtailment of the Kindergarten 
will generally prove an effectual restraint upon disorder, and 
it will not be necessary to repeat the penalty in a school year. 

But I shall say no more upon" moral and religious exer- 
cises, Mrs. Mann having treated this part of the subject so 
exhaustively. It is to be remembered, however, that she 
had in her school children who had strayed much farther 
from the kingdom of heaven than those who will generally 
make up the Kindergarten. But she shows the spirit that 
should pervade all that is done to children at all times. 



3* 



58 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

OBJECT LESSONS. 

I now come to Object Lessons, which should begin sim- 
ultaneously with all the above exercises ; for mental ex- 
ercises are not only compatible with physical health, but 
necessary to it. The brain is not to be overstrained in child- 
hood, but it is to be used. Where it is left to itself, and 
remains uncultivated, it shrinks, and that is disease. A 
child is not able to direct its own attention ; it needs the 
help of the adult in the unfolding of the mind, no less than 
in the care of its body. Lower orders of animals can edu- 
cate themselves, that is, develop in themselves their one 
power. As the animals rise in the scale of being, they are 
related more or less to their progenitors and posterity, and 
require social aid. But the human being, whose beatitude 
is " the communion of the just," is so universally related, 
that he cannot go alone at all. He is entirely dependent 
at first, and never becomes independent of those around him, 
any further than he has been so educated and trained by 
his relations with them, as to rise into union with God. 
And this restores him again to communion with his fellow- 
beings, as a beneficent Power among its peers. 

The new method of education gives a gradual series of 
exercises, continuing the method of Nature. It cultivates 
the senses, by giving them the work of discriminating colors, 
sounds, &c. ; sharpens perception by leading children to de- 
scribe accurately the objects immediately around them. 

Objects themselves, rather than the verbal descriptions 
of objects, are presented to them. The only way to make 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 59 

words expressive and intelligible, is to associate them sen- 
sibly with the objects to which they relate. Children must 
be taught to translate things into words, before they can 
translate words into things. Words are secondary in na- 
ture ; yet much teaching seems to proceed, on the principle 
that these are primary, and so they become mere counters, 
and children are brought to hating study, and the discourse of 
teachers, instead of thirsting for them. To look at objects 
of nature and art, and state their colors, forms, and properties 
of various kinds, is no painful strain upon the mind. It is 
just what children spontaneously do when they are first 
learning to talk. It is a continuation of learning to talk. 
The object-teacher confines the child's attention to one thing, 
till all that is obvious about it is described ; and then asks 
questions, bringing out much that children, left to them- 
selves, would overlook, suggesting words when necessary, 
to enable them to give an account of what they see. It is 
the action of the mind upon real things, together with cloth- 
ing perceptions in words, which really cultivates ; while it 
is not the painful strain upon the brain which the study of 
a book is. To translate things into words, is a more agreea- 
ble and a very different process from translating words into 
things, and the former exercise should precede the latter. 
If the mind is thoroughly exercised in wording its percep- 
tions, words will in their turn suggest the things, without 
painful effort, and memory have the clearness and accuracy 
of perception. On the other hand words will never be used 
without feeling and intelligence. Then, to read a book will 
be to know all of reality that is in it. 

I am desirous to make a strong impression on this point, 
because, to many persons, I find object-teaching seems the 
opposite of teaching ! They say that to play with things, 
does not give habits of study. They think that to commit 
to memory a page of description about a wild duck, for in- 
stance, is better than to have the wild duck to look at, lead- 
ing the child to talk about it, describe it, and inquire into 



60 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

its ways and haunts ! They do not see that this study of 
the things themselves exercises the perception, and pic- 
turesque memory, which is probably immortal, certainly 
perennial, while the written description only exercises the 
verbal memory. Verbal memory is not to be despised ; 
but it is a consequence, and should never be the substitute 
for picturesque memory. It is the picturesque memory only 
which is creative. 

There is another and profound reason why words should 
follow, and not precede things, in a child's memory. It will 
have a tendency to preclude the unconscious sophistry which 
takes the place of real logic in so many minds ; and at all 
events will give the power to detect sophistry ; for it neces- 
sitates the mind to demand an image, or an idea, for every 
word. It gives the habit of thinking things and principles, 
instead of thinking words merely ; — of looking through 
rhetoric after truth and reality. There is nothing perhaps 
which would conduce more to sound morality and earnest- 
ness of character, in this country, than that object-teaching, 
as proposed in Mr. Sheldon's " Elementary Instruc- 
tion," should pervade the primary schools. It would re- 
quire a volume to go into object-teaching, in such detail as 
to serve as a manual for teachers ; and happily the work of 
Mr. Sheldon's, just named, precludes the necessity of my 
doing so. It is published broadcast over our northern 
States ; and every teacher, especially every Kindergarten 
teacher, should procure it, and give days and nights to the 
study of it, until its methods and matter are completely mas- 
tered. I have one or two exceptions to take, in respect to 
it myself, as will be seen in the sequel ; yet I consider it not 
only an invaluable manual, but that it goes far to supply the 
place of the training school for teachers on the Pestalozzian 
plan, " for whose use I believe it was primarily intended." 

Object-teaching should precede as well as accompany the 
process of learning to read. In Germany, even outside of 
Kindergarten, thinking schools have long preceded reading 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 61 

schools, and yet learning to read German, in which every 
sound is represented by a different letter, and every letter 
has one sound, cultivates the classifying powers, as learn- 
ing to read English cannot. With children whose vernacu- 
lar is English, it is absolutely injurious to the mind to be 
taught to read the first thing. I must speak of the reasons 
of this in another place, my purpose here being to show 
that object -teaching is necessary, in order to make word- 
teaching, whether by teacher's discourse, or by the reading 
of books, a means of culture at any period. 

Every child should have the object to examine, and in 
turn each should say what is spontaneous. Out of their an- 
swers series of questions will be suggested to the teacher, 
who should also be prepared with her own series of ques- 
tions, — questions full of answers. 

The first generalization to which children should be led 
is into the animate and inanimate, — what lives and what 
exists without manifestation of life. The next generaliza- 
tion will be into mineral, vegetable, animal, and personal. 

But you can begin with chairs, tables, paper, cloth, 
&c, coming as soon as possible to natural objects. Mrs. 
Agassiz's " First Lesson in Natural History " is an excel- 
lent hint. Sea anemones, star-fishes, clams, and oysters are 
easily procured. If sea anemones, taken into a bottle of 
salt water, clinging to stones, look like mere mosses at 
first, on the second day it is pretty certain, that in their 
desire for food they will spread themselves out, displaying 
their inward parts in the most beautiful manner. Every 
child in the class should have his turn at the object, if there 
are not objects enough for each, — should tell what he sees, 
and be helped to words to express himself. This, I must 
repeat, is the true way of learning the meaning of words ; 
and leaves impressions, which no dictionary, with its peri- 
phrases and mere approximations to synonymes can give. 
Let a child himself hammer out some substance with a mal- 
let, and he will never forget the meaning of malleable ; and 



62 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

so of other words. As far as possible we should always 
use Saxon words, but* it is the words that come from the 
Latin and Greek, which it is most necessary to teach the 
meaning of; and they should be taught by things them- 
selves, which have them for names or qualities. 

A good linguist will have an advantage here, by being 
able to trace the words through the original language 
up to nature ; for every word is, in the last analysis, either 
a picture, whose original in nature is its definition, or a 
poem, which can be recognized by the general imagination. 
A child whose vernacular is English will easily see that 
a bit is something bitten off, and so is smaller than the 
mouth ; but that morsel means a bit is not so obvious to one 
who does not know that morsus, also, is the perfect parti- 
ciple of the Latin verb for bite. That acute means sharp is 
plainer to a child who knows that acu is the Latin for 
needle. 

No time is lost which is given to this definition of words 
by the objects of nature and art, from which, or from whose 
attributes, words are derived. In words are fossilized the 
sciences, that is, the knowledge mankind has already attain- 
ed of nature ; and he who understands all the words in use, 
would know all that is known, nay, much that has been once 
known and long forgotten. But the study of objects not only 
gives significance to words, it educates the senses, and pro- 
duces the habit of original attention and investigation of 
nature. These do not come of themselves, as we see in the 
instance of country children, who are ignorant of what is 
around them, because left to grow up among the objects of 
nature, without having their attention called to things in 
their minutiae, or their relations in extensu ; nor led to 
clothe with words their perceptions, impressions, and rea- 
soning-. 

Besides Mr. Sheldon's " Elementary Instruction," there is 
the " Child's Book of Nature," by "Worthington Hooker, in 
three parts, which will be a great help to an object-teacher. It 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 63 

is published by the Harpers, and is the very best introduction 
of children to flowers.* Mrs. Mann's " Flower People " is 
also full of facts, carefully studied out. This is a charming 
book for children to read in, when they shall come to read. 
It is a great pity that the latest edition, published by Tick- 
nor and Fields in 1862, is not illustrated by the flowers 
spoken of. But perhaps these may be lithographed, and 
published in a card-case, to accompany it. Both the science 
and cultivation of flowers comes very naturally into the 
Kindergarten. 

The greatest difficulty about object-teaching is, that it 
requires personal training, and wide-awake attention in 
teachers, of a character much more thorough than they com- 
monly have. When it shall become general, as it certainly 
must, it will no longer be supposed that any ordinary per- 
son who can read and write, and is obliged to do something 
for a living, will be thought fit to keep a school for small 
children ! The present order of things will be reversed. 
Ordinary persons, with limited acquirements, will be obliged 
to confine themselves to older pupils, who are able to study 
books and only need to have some one to set their lessons 
and hear them recited ; while persons of originality and rich 
culture will be reserved to discover and bring out the vari- 
ous genius and faculty which God has sown broadcast in 
the field of the race, and which now so often runs into the 
rank vegetation of vice, or wastes into deserts of concentrated 
mediocrity. Then this season of education will command 
the largest remuneration, as it will secure the finest pow- 
ers to the work ; and because such work cannot be pur- 
sued by any one person for many years, nor even for a 
short time without assistance, relieving from the ceaseless 
attention that a company of small children requires, for lit- 
tle children cannot be wound up to go like watches ; but to 
keep them in order, the teacher must constantly meet their 
outbursting life with her own magnetic forces ; while their 
* Gray's How Plants Grow, is invaluable for a teacher. 



64 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

employments must be continually interchanged, and mingled 
with their recreations. 

Children ought to continue these Kindergarten exercises 
from the age of three to nine ; and if faithfully taught, they 
could then go into what is called scholastic training, in a 
state of mind to receive from it the highest advantages it is 
capable of giving ; free from the disadvantages which are 
now so obvious as to have raised, in our practical country, a 
party prejudiced against classical education altogether. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 65 



CHAPTER IX. 



GEOMETRY. 



Rev. Dr. Hill, the present President of Harvard Col- 
lege, in his articles in Dr. Barnard's " Journal of Education," 
has set forth the importance of Geometry in the earliest edu- 
cation, giving the Science of Form precedence to that of 
numbers. Of course he does not mean that logical demon- 
stration is to form one of the exercises of little children ! 
but that observation of differences and resemblances of shape, 
and the combination of forms, should be inwoven with the 
amusements of children. He invented a toy on the princi- 
ple of the Chinese tanagram, (published by Hickling, Swan 
& Co., in Boston,) to further an exercise which begins in the 
cradle with the examination of the hands and feet. 

The blocks are the first materials. Take the cube and 
ask how many faces it has ; how many corners ; and whether 
one face is larger than another or equal ; and finally, lead 
the child to describe a cube as a solid figure with six equal 
sides, and eight corners. Then take a solid triangle from the 
box and draw out by questions that it has five sides and six 
corners, that three of its sides are equal, and two others 
equal ; that the three larger sides are four-sided, and the two 
smaller sides are three-sided ; and that the corners are 
sharper than those of a cube. 

Make analogous use of all the blocks, and of the furniture 
of the room, of the sphere and its parts, the cylinder, &c. 
Do not require the definition-formulas at first, but content 
yourself with opening the children's eyes to the facts which 
the formula afterwards shall declare. 



60 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

Paper-folding can be made subservient to another step, 
just short of abstraction. 

Give each one of a class a square piece of paper, and 
proceed thus : What is the shape of this paper ? How 
many sides has it ? Which is the longest side ? How many 
corners has it ? Have in hand, already cut, several acute 
and obtuse angled triangles, and showing them, ask if the 
corners of the square are like these corners ? If they are as 
sharp as some of them ; or as blunt as some ? Spreading 
out the triangle before them say, which is the sharpest cor- 
ner, and which the bluntest ? and let the children compare 
them with the corners of the square, by laying them upon 
the square. They will see that the square corners are nei- 
ther blunt nor sharp, but as they will perhaps say, straight. 
Let them look round the room, and on the furniture and 
window-sashes, find these several kinds of corner. At least 
they can always find right angles in the furniture. Then 
tell them there is another word for corners, namely, angles, 
that a square corner is a right angle, a sharp corner a sharp 
angle, and a blunt corner a blunt angle. 

If the teacher chooses she can go farther and tell them 
that acute is another word for sharp, and obtuse another word 
for blunt ; (or these two Latin words may be deferred till by 
and by, one new word angle being enough to begin with.) 

You can then say, " Now tell me how you describe a square, 
supposing somebody should ask you that did net know ; " and 
give them more or less help to say : " A square is a figure 
with four equal sides and four straight corners (or right 
angles)." To prove to them that it is necessary to mention 
the right angles in describing a square, you can make a rhom- 
bus, and show them its different shape with its acute and ob- 
tuse angles. Having thus exhausted the description of a 
square, let every one double up his square, and so get an ob- 
long. Ask if this is a square ? What is it ? How does it 
differ from a square ? Are all four sides different from each 
other ? Which sides are alike ? How are the corners (or 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 67 

angles) ? In what, then, is it like a square ? In what does it 
differ ? Bring out from the child at last the description of 
an oblong, as a four-sided figure with straight corners (or 
right angles), and its opposite sides equal. Contrast it with 
some parallelogram which is not a rectangle, and which you 
must have ready. Let them now fold their oblongs again, 
and crease the folds ; then ask them to unfold and say what 
they have, and they will find four squares. Ask them 
if every square can be folded so as to make two oblongs, and 
then if every oblong can be so divided as to make two 
squares ? If they say yes to this last question, give them 
a shorter oblong, which you must have ready, and having 
made them notice that it is an oblong, by asking them to tell 
whether its opposite sides are equal, and its angles right 
angles, ask them to fold it, and see if it will make two 
squares. They will see that it will not. Then ask them if 
all oblongs are of the same shape ; and then if all squares 
are of the same shape ? 

The above foldings will be enough for a lesson, and if the 
children are small it will be enough for two lessons. 

Beginning the next time, ask them what is the difference 
between an oblong and square ? and if they have forgotten, 
do not tell them in words, but give them square papers and let 
them learn it over again as before, by their own observations. 
Then give them again square pieces of paper, and ask them 
to join the opposite corners, and crease a fold diagonally 
(but do not use the w 7 ord diagonally). Then ask them what 
shape they have got ? They will reply, a three-sided figure. 
Ask them how many corners or angles it has, and then 
tell them that, on account of its being three-cornered, it is 
called a triangle. Now let them compare the angles, and 
they will find that there is one straight corner (right angle) 
and two sharp corners (acute angles). Ask them if the sides 
are equal, and they will find that two sides are equal and the 
other side longer. Set up the triangle on its base, so that 
the equal sides may be in the attitude of the outstretched 



68 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

legs of a man ; call their attention to this by a question, and 
then say, on account of this shape this triangle is called 
equal-legged, as well as right-angled — a right-angled equal- 
legged triangle. By giving them examples to compare it 
with, you can demonstrate to them that all right-angled tri- 
angles are not equal-legged, and all equal-legged triangles 
are not right-angled. Show them an equal-legged right- 
angled triangle, an equal-legged acute-angled triangle, and 
an equal-legged obtuse-angled triangle, and this discrimina- 
tion will be obvious. The word isosceles can be introduced, 
if the teacher thinks best ; but I keep off the Greek and 
Latin terms as long as possible. 

Now tell the children to put together the other two cor- 
ners of their triangles, laying the sharp corners on each other, 
and crossing the fold ; unfolding their papers they will find 
four right-angled equal-legged triangles creased upon their 
square paper. Are all these of the same shape, and of the 
same size? Now fold the unfolded square into oblongs, and 
make a crease, and they will find, on unfolding again, that 
they have six isosceles triangles, two of them being twice 
as large as any one of the other four. Ask, are all these 
triangles of equal size ? Are all of them similar in shape ? 
leading them to discriminate the use in geometry of the 
words equal and similar. Can triangles be large and small 
without altering the shape ? Then similar and equal mean 
differently ? Are all squares similar ? are all squares equal ? 
are all triangles equal ? are all triangles similar ? What is 
the difference between a square and oblong ? What is the 
difference between a square and a triangle ? What is the 
difference between a square and a rhombus ? What kind 
of corners has a rhombus ? In what is a square like a 
rhombus ? How do you describe a triangle ? What is the 
name of the triangles you have learnt about ? They will 
answer right-angled, equal-legged triangles. Then give them 
each a hexagon, and ask them what kind of corners it has ? 
Whether any one is more blunt than another ? Whether 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 69 

any side is greater than another ? How many sides has it ? 
And then draw out from them that a hexagon is a figure of 
six equal sides, with six obtuse angles, just equal to each 
other in their obtuseness. Having done this, direct the fold- 
ing till they have divided the hexagon into six triangles, 
meeting at the centre. Ask them if these are right-angled 
triangles, and if they hesitate, give them a square to measure 
with. Then ask them if they are equal-legged (isosceles) 
triangles. They may say yes, in which case reply yes, and 
more than equal-legged, they are equal-sided. All three 
sides are equal, and so they have a different name, — they are 
called equilateral. Ask, what is the difference between equi- 
lateral and isosceles, if you have given them these names, 
and help them, if necessary, to the answer, " equilateral tri- 
angles have all the sides equal, isosceles triangles have only 
two sides equal." Are equilateral triangles all similar, that 
is, of the same shape ? Are isosceles triangles all similar ? 
and if they hesitate or say yes, show two isosceles triangles, 
one with the third side shorter, and one with it longer than 
the other two sides. 

Now give to each child a square, and tell them to fold it 
so as to make two equal triangles ; then to unfold it, and fold 
it into two equal oblongs. Unfold it again, and there will be 
seen, beside the triangles, two other figures, which are nei- 
ther squares, oblongs, or triangles, but a four-sided figure of 
which no two sides are equal, and only two sides are parallel, 
with two right angles, one obtuse and one acute angle. Let 
all this be brought out of the children by questions. As 
there is no common name for this figure, name it trapezoid 
at once. Then let them fold the paper to make two parallel- 
ograms at right angles with the first two, and they will have 
two equal squares, and four equal isosceles triangles, which 
are equal to the two squares. Now fold the paper into two 
triangles, and you will have eight triangles meeting in the 
centre by their vertices, all of which are right-angled and 
equal-legged. Ask them if they are equal-sided ? so as to 



70 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

keep tnera very clear of confounding the isosceles with the 
equilateral, but use the English terms as often as the Latin 
and Greek, for the vernacular keeps the mind awake, while 
the foreign technical puts it into a passiveness more or less 
sleepy. Then give all the children octagons, and bring out 
from them its description by sides and angles ; and then fold 
it so as to make eight isosceles triangles. 

Another thing that can be taught by paper-folding is to 
divide polygons, regular or irregular, into triangles, and thus 
let them learn that every polygon contains as many triangles 
as it has sides, less two. 

Proportions can also be taught by letting them cut off tri- 
angles, similar in shape to the wholes, by creases parallel to 
the base. Grund's " Plane Geometry " will help a teacher 
to lessons on proportion, and can be almost wholly taught 
by this paper-folding. Also Professor Davies's " Descriptive 
Geometry," and Hay's " Symmetrical Drawing." 

Of course it will take a teacher who is familiar with geom- 
etry to do all that may be done by this amusement, to 
habituate the mind to consider and compare forms, and their 
relations to each other. Exercises on folding circles can be 
added. It would take a volume to exhaust the subject. 
Enough has been said to give an idea to a capable teacher. 
Care must be taken that the consideration should be always 
of concrete not of abstract forms. Mr. Hill says his " First 
Lessons in Geometry " were the amusements of his son of 
five years old. Pascal and Professor Pierce found out such 
amusements for themselves, which had the high end of pre- 
paring them for their great attainments in logical geometry. 

It must be remembered that in a Kindergarten these les- 
sons should not be more than a quarter of an hour long, 
perhaps not more than ten minutes ; and that the making 
of paper windmills and boats, fly-boxes, and other toys out 
of folded paper, should occasionally intervene, prompting the 
children to inventions of their own. Sometimes surprising 
applications of their geometry to these little mechanical 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 71 

efforts, will be made by very small people. A child of eight 
years of age, with whom I read over Mr. Hill's " Geometry 
for Beginners," for his amusement, with practical proving, 
in two months after invented a self-moving carriage for his 
sister's dolly, that would give it a ride of ten feet. 



72 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 



CHAPTER X. 

ARITHMETIC. 

Not only a good deal of geometrical knowledge can be 
given to ehildren by comparing the forms of blocks and fold- 
ing paper, before they know how to read, but they can learn 
to count also. Blocks, melon-seeds, and sticks can be used. 
The first point is to prevent the error of their supposing that 
the several units of a number have different numerical names. 
Put down one block and say, that is one. Then take two 
blocks and say, there are two. Then take three and say, there 
are three. Tell the child to bring you two sticks ; then to go 
and get three sticks. For a considerable time let the exercise 
be for a child to take out and bring to you certain numbers 
of blocks. You can then say 1 and 1 are 2 ; 1 and 1 and 
1 are 3 ; 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 are 4 ; and when the number 
comes to be 8 or 9, you can help the child by telling him 
first to make the pile 2, and then to make it 3, and then to 
make it 4, and so on. Thus he will learn that 2 and 1 are 
3, 3 and 1 are 4, &c. It will sometimes be wise to take 
something else than blocks to count ; melon-seeds, or little 
sticks ; and by and by they can be asked to think of one 
apple in one hand, and two apples in the other hand, and 
say what number of apples there would be if they were put 
into one pile. If there is no hurry at all, even the slowest 
child can be carried along in this gradual manner, without 
painful confusion of mind, and the life-long aversion that 
sometimes arises to arithmetical calculation be prevented. 
After children have learnt to count as far as 100, it is 
well to introduce multiplication, which they must see to be 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 73 

addition of equal numbers ; and I advise that the multiplica- 
tion table should be learnt perpendicularly, but without the 
use of figures. Thus let them say twice 1, three times 1, 
4 times 1, &c. ; twice 2, three times 2, 4 times 2, &c, up to 
10 times 2, before it is learnt in the usual way, (twice 1, 
twice 2, twice 3, &c.) Let them have objects to help along 
at first. Thus children will learn the substance of the mul- 
tiplication, addition, and subtraction tables before they learn 
to read. Sometimes it is necessary to postpone it, children's 
minds unfold so differently. We can exercise memory by 
repetition. But reason cannot be hurried. We should take 
care that the memory of results should not take the place 
of numerical apprehension, which is an act of reason. And 
written arithmetic should be postponed till the habit of 
mental calculation is fully formed. Warren Colburn dis- 
covered and established the method of nature in his primary 
book, and no variation from his principle is to be thought of. 
The teacher should consult Mr. Sheldon's book, which has 
a fine series of the earliest exercises. 

"Another thing that children can learn practically is the 
tables of measurement. Let the teacher have gill, pint, 
quart, and gallon measures ; and let the children themselves 
fill up the gallon with the quart measure, the quart with the 
pint measure, the pint with the gill measure, till they have 
the table well by heart. Then let them have other vessels, 
of various capacity, and guess how much they will hold, and 
then measure and see. This is very entertaining, and edu- 
cates a power. So they can have an inch measure divided 
into its three barleycorns ; a nail divided into its inches ; a 
quarter of a yard divided into nails ; a yard divided into its 
feet ; and learn to measure the furniture and judge of sizes. 
Again there can be the weights of troy weight, and of avoir- 
dupois weight, and a pair of scales, and the children learn to 
weigh in their hands. 

By the blocks which are divided into halves and quarters, 
and by these weights and measures, some idea of fractions 
4 



74 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

may be given, and by means of eagles, dollars, dimes, cents, 
and a piece of paper representing a mill, the foundation of 
decimal numeration can be laid in the mind. 

But as I have so frequently said, let the teacher beware 
of premature abstraction with children, and be careful, es- 
pecially in geometry, of inadvertencies of expression herself. 
I would suggest she should always say curve and not curved 
line. A line is length in one direction ; a curve always 
changes the direction of the instrument making it. This 
verbal discrimination prevents a great deal of verbiage. 



t 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. * 75 



CHAPTER XL 



READING. 



After children's minds have been opened by object- 
teaching, and indeed, simultaneously with all the above- 
described Kindergarten employments and recreations, I be- 
gin to teach reading, which also comes legitimately within 
the Kindergarten culture. 

But, as I have hinted before, I consider learning to read 
English a somewhat unfortunate process for the mind of a 
child. On account of the irregularity of what is called 
English orthoepy and orthography, the written language is 
a chaos — into which, when the child's mind is introduced 
in the usual way, all its natural attempts at classification are 
baffled. The late Horace Mann, in a lecture on the alpha- 
bet, has with great humor and perspicacity shown this ; and 
he recommended that children should be taught to read by 
words purely. But when some years afterwards his atten- 
tion was drawn to the phonic method, he accepted it fully ; 
and wrote for Mrs. Mann the preface to her Philadelphia 
edition of the Primer of Reading and Drawing. This was 
not until after it had been tested in his own family and some 
others, where I had introduced the phonic method. 

On the details of my method I must enlarge all the more, 
because I find myself differing in some respects from Mr. 
Sheldon's plan, which loses a large part of the advantages 
of the phonic method by not having one definite sound for 
each letter. As I have taught on my plan successfully for 
fifteen years, I am prepared to defend it at all points, from 
the ground of a various experience. But I can adduce also 



76 > KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

the highest philologic authority for my mode of sounding the 
alphabet,* as well as an argument of common sense from the 
nature of the case. 

The primal cause of the chaotic condition of English 
orthography, is the fact that the Roman alphabet, which was 
a perfect phonography of the old Latin language, lacked 
characters for four English vowels and four English conso- 
nants. The Latin monks had not the wit to invent new 
characters for these additional sounds ; but undertook to use 
the Roman letters for them also. Hence for the vowel heard 
in the words irk, err, work, and urge, they used indifferently 
all four characters ; for truly one would do as well as another. 
But if they had put a dot into the middle of the o, and added 
it to the alphabet, it would have been better than either. 
Also, if for the vowel sound of pun, they had put a dot 
under the u ; and for the vowel sound of man, they had put 
a dot under the a ; and for the vowel sound of not, a dot 
under the o ; they would have had four more letters in their 
alphabet, which would have completed the phonography of 
the English vowels. Similar dots under d t s c would have 
made a phonography of consonants, and avoided the awkward 
combinations of sh, ch, and the ambiguity of th, which now 
stands for the differing initials of then and thin. 

But as they did not do this, a certain divorce took place 
between the ideas of the sounds and the letters ; and hence 
the long uncertainty of the English orthography, and the 
stereotyped absurdities, which now mark it. 

It is so nearly impossible to remedy a difficulty which has 
passed into print so largely, that we have to accept the evil, 
and remedy as best we may the disadvantage it is to young 
minds to have all this confusion presented to them on the 
threshold of their literary education.f 

* See the North American Review of January and April — articles 
Kraitsir's Significance of the Alphabet, from the pen of an eminent 
philologist; also Kraitsir's Nature of Language and Language of Na- 
ture, published in 1851, by George P. Putnam in New York. 

f The only possible advantage the present spelling has, is the help it 






KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 77 

It was suggested to me by Dr. Kraitsir, that I should take a 
volume of any book, and count the times that each of the vow- 
els, and c and g, were sounded as the Romans sounded them, 
and how many times they were sounded otherwise, and thus 
see whether it was true, as he said, that these Roman sounds 
were the most frequent, even in the English language. I 
did so on a few pages of Sir Walter Scott's novels, and found 
that the letter i sounded as in ink 240 times, to one that it 
sounded as in hind ; and though the proportion was not quite 
so great with any other vowel, yet there was a large majority 
for the Roman sound, in each instance, as well as for the 
hard sounds of c and g. Indeed I found g was hard, even 
before e and i, in the case of every Saxon word ; and that 
all the soft gs, which are not many, were derived from the 
Norman-French. 

I then set myself to find what words in English were 
written entirely with the Roman-sounding letters ; and, to 
my surprise, found a large-number, — enough to fill a pri- 
mary spelling-book; — while most of the syllables of the rest 
of the words in the language yielded on analysis the same 
sounds. It immediately occurred to me to begin to teach 
children to read by these words, whose analysis would always 
yield them the Roman sounds, and reserve, till afterwards, 
the words which are exceptions, leaving the anomalies to be 
learnt by rote. 

I tried my first experiment on a child a little more than 
four years old, by printing on a black-board certain words, 
letter by letter, until he had learned the whole alphabet, 
both to know each character at sight, and to print it on the 
black-board, and it was a signal success. 

For the convenience of those who do not know the old Ro- 
man pronunciation of Latin, for which our alphabet is a per- 
fect phonography, I will give the sounds of the letters here. 

gives to Etymologists, but it also often confuses them. A perfect alpha- 
bet, that is, an alphabet with eight more characters than the Roman, 
would have been the right thing to have had in the right place and time. 



78 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

In the case of the vowels (voice letters), 

i is pronounced Th as in ink, (not eye.) 

e " eh as in ell, (not as in be.) 

a " ah as in arm, (not as in may.) 

o " oh as in old, 

u " uh as in ruin, (not as in unit.) 

in the case of the consonants, giving the power of the letter 
by making them finals, and obscuring the e as much as pos- 
sible for the lip letters, eb, ef, ep, ev, while the semi-vowels 
m, n, 1, r, require not even the obscure e to their being 
sounded perfectly, shutting the lips and sounding m, opening 
them and shutting the palate to sound n, holding the tongue 
still to sound 1, shaking it to sound r, (el, em, en, er ; ) the 
tooth letters ed, et, ess, ezz — and the throat letters ec, ek, 
eq,* eg, and a breathing from the throat for h. Often chil- 
dren will come to the Kindergarten knowing the letters, in 
which case it is best to begin with the letters according to 
the organs, as is suggested in my first chapter, and when they 
give the old names — you can say, " No, I do not want that 
name but the sound." 

The whole alphabet in order will then be ah, eb, ec, ed, 
eh, ef, eg, h (breathed), lh, ej, ek, el, em, en, oh, ep, eq, er, 
ess, et, uh (oo) ev, w (breathed) ex, y, just like lh, and not 
called wye, ez. Also the sign & for the word and. 

In the first chapter of this book, I have detailed one 
method of beginning with a class, — that of giving the sounds 
of the letters first, classed according to the organs. 

But my common way is to begin with whole words, which 
are more sure to interest a child. A limited number of 

* k, q, and y were not Roman letters but Greek ones, k being introduced 
into the Latin originally as an abbreviation of ca and q as an abbreviation 
of cu. J and x were introduced into our alphabet by the first printers, 
but we have appropriated j to a new sound, not in the Latin language ; 
and we have two sounds for x, (as printed Latin has), one being gs and 
the other cs. The Latins at first wrote lex legs, and vox vocs, as we see 
by the variations of these nouns for case. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 79 

words arranged in sentences, teaches them to know and 
write the whole alphabet. For the convenience of teachers 
who may not have either my " First Nursery Reading-Book," 
or Mrs. Mann's " Primer of Reading and Drawing " on hand, 
I will give here some sentences that contain the whole al- 
phabet, which the teacher can teach by printing them on the 
black-board, and letting the children imitate them with pencil 
on the slate, or chalk on the black-board. 

O puss, puss, pussy ; O kitty, kitty, kitty ; Kitty sings 
miu, miu ; pussy sings mieaou ; pussy is old, pussy is cold ; 
put pussy into mamma's basket ; mamma is singing to papa ; 
papa is kissing mamma ; pussy, go to kitty, go, go, go ; kitty is 
in mamma's basket ; go into mamma's garden, and pick roses, 
anemones, tulips, and pinks ; mamma's velvet dress fits well ; 
bells ring and cars go ; cars go very quickly ; hens sit ; hens 
eggs ; eggs in lark's nest ; eggs in linnet's nest ; larks sing 
tralala, tralala ; fill mamma's basket full of roses, anemones, 
pinks, tulips, crocuses ; Lizzy is dizzy, very dizzy ; Helen is 
rosy red ; Alexis sent his mamma a jar full of jelly ; Barbara 
kisses Cora ; Dora is spinning yarn ; Flora is spinning yarn ; 
Gilbert sent Henry a jar of guava jelly ; Isabella is kissing 
Julia ; Karlito sent a linnet's egg to Lilian ; Margaret picks 
roses ; Nina picks tulips in Olivia's garden ; Penelope plants 
pinks in Ellen's garden; Rosalind sings to Quasi-modo ; 
Susan puts eggs into mamma's basket ; Tina brings roses to 
Vivian ; Willy brings crocuses to mamma. 

The above sentences, written over and over again, will 
teach all the letters ; others must be added, but after certain 
letters are learnt, it is useful, and a pleasant variety, for the 
children to write columns of words, with only one letter dif- 
fering ; thus, old, cold, fold, gold, hold, sold, told, wold ; ell, 
bell, dell, fell, hell, quell, sell, tell, well ; art, cart, dart, hart, 
mart, part, tart, start ; in, binn, din, fin, jin, kin, pin, sin, tin, 
win, &c, &c. 

My " First Nursery Reading-Book " is entirely made up of 
such columns, after half a dozen pages of words in sentences ; 



80 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

and long before the children have written it half through, 
they can pronounce the words on first sight, though many 
of them are five and six syllables long. 

And here I must foreclose some criticisms which have 
been made on this book. 

First, — that the sentences are not interesting or impor- 
tant. That is of no moment. Children are interested in 
separate words ; especially if they are to write them as well 
as read them. I have never seen children tired of the words, 
and of making them. 

Some persons have disputed the pronunciation of some of 
the words. There are, perhaps, half a dozen inadvertencies 
in the book which can be corrected in a second edition. 

I indicate no difference between the s when it is sounded 
sharp, and when soft like z. But I think this will never 
lead to any practical error ; because the language is vernac- 
ular, and the child has a teacher. 

I affirm that the article a is sounded ah in the spoken lan- 
guage, for it is not accented. Also that in such words as 
deject, reject, &c, the two e's sound alike, like most unac- 
cented e's in the language. 

For a time, there is no need for the children to have a 
book at all. Let them have a lesson fifteen minutes long, in 
which they write the words after the dictation of the teacher. 

Let the written words remain on the black-board, and after 
some other employments have intervened, let them read the 
words off the black-board. 

When they have mastered all the letters, it is a good plan 
to give them the book, and let them find the words. Show- 
ing them a line, ask them to look along and find a certain 
word. 

They will be pleased to find that they can read in a book, 
and will like to copy on their slates the columns of words, 
which may be made another exercise of a quarter of an 
hour. In my Kindergarten, they write the words, after the 
teacher, on their black-boards ; and afterwards write out of 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 81 

the printed books upon the slate. I have hitherto had more 
time, in proportion, given to the reading than my own judg- 
ment quite approves ; because parents are so urgent, and 
measure their children's progress so exclusively by their 
power of reading : and, if they do not learn a great deal 
faster than children usually learn to read, distrust the sys- 
tem, and interfere. 

Even if this method did prove longer than other methods 
of learning to read, I should wish to pursue it, because to 
find that the same letter always represents the same sound, 
cultivates the mind's power of classification, and gives it 
confidence in its own little reasoning. But I have found 
that it is a shorter, not a longer, process. I have known 
a child of three years old, who was found to know how to 
read, when there was no thought of teaching him, but his 
brother of five years old had been taught to read upon the 
black-board in his presence. A child of seven years old 
learnt to read and write print beautifully, in three months, in 
lessons of ten minutes, given only when she asked for them. 
And in those cases there was not the additional advantage 
of a class. Several children in my own Kindergarten, in 
my first season, when I never gave half an hour in the day to 
reading, not only mastered my first Nursery Reading-Book, 
but got upon the anomalous words, and learnt to read so far, 
that the second season they could read fluently. If as 
much time was given, in the Kindergarten, to mere reading, 
as is given in the public schools, they would, doubtless, have 
learnt in three months, but I would not give the time ; for 
I believe it is so much better for the whole nature, i. e., all 
the powers of sense and apprehension, to be cultivated by 
examining objects. 

I have also another difficulty to contend with. Children 
are taught their letters at home, and the parents interfere to 
help, and really hinder by bringing in the old sounds of the 
letters and the anomalous words, before I am ready for 
them. There is no objection to the children's having the 
4* 



82 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

First Nursery-Book at home to use and copy on their slates, 
provided those at home will confine themselves to pronounc- 
ing the words to them instead of attempting to spell them. 

The question, however, comes at last, But how are they to 
attain the rest of the language ? Before I had any expe- 
rience, I myself thought this was to be a great difficulty. 
In the first instance, after I had brought my little pupil 
to the point that he could print correctly any word that I 
pronounced to him, and could read at sight any of my 
selected words, I gave him a piece of poetry to read, be- 
ginning — 

" Sleep, baby, sleep." 

He read it slay-ape bahby, slay-ape. 

I said, " No, that first word is sleep." He was surprised, 
and wondered why it was written so. 

I said, " Perhaps they used to say slayape, but they say 
sleep now ; and in books there are a good many * such 
w r ords. Now I will rub out si (I pronounced this combi- 
nation with one impulse of the voice) and put a w, and 
say, now, what is that ? " " O, That is weep." Now I rub- 
bed out the w, and put d. He immediately said, " That 
is deep." I said, " Now you write sleep, and under it 
put weep, deep, peep, keep, steep, sweep, creep." He did 
so, at once, and then he took great pleasure in getting a 
paper and lead-pencil, and writing the whole column, 
which, of course, he never forgot. I proceeded in the 
same manner, till he had not only written all the song, 
but all the analogues of each word, — and it was wonderful 
how soon he could read. The scientific habit of mind 
which was attained by classing the words as he learned 
them, has shown itself throughout his education. He 
never learned a so-called spelling-lesson, but he scarcely 
ever wrote a word wrongly spelled ; and it has been 
a uniform observation that children taught on this 
method always write without errors. Each variation from 
the standard so strongly fixed in their minds makes a 



KINDERGARTEN" GUIDE. 83 

great impression ; and to write the words in groups, makes 
these anomalies remembered in groups. 

In my own Kindergarten, I give to my class "Mother 
Goose's Melodies." They know many of them by heart ; 
but I make them sit in class, and each, in turn, read one 
word, in order to teach them to keep the place, and when 
they finish a verse, I ask them to find some word, and 
often make it the nucleus of a group of words of the 
same kind, to be written upon the black-board and slates 
as above. But I think it is a good plan, before giving a 
book, to call their attention to the initial sounds of thin, 
then, shin, chin, and ask them what letter stands for these. 
Of course they will say they do not know. Then you can 
say " There is none ; for the people who made these letters 
did not have these sounds in their language ; and so, when 
they came to write English, they put a t and h together to 
stand for one sound ; and c and h for another ; and s and 
h for another." 

Lists of words should then be dictated and written : such 
as thin, think, thing, thrift, thrill, thick, bath, lath, doth, sloth, 
quoth, pith, smith, fifth, filth, width, depth, tenth, truth, 
thresh, threshold, methodist, synthetic, pathetic, cathartic, 
then, them, with, this, hither, thither, nether, tether, hither- 
to, farthing, withhold, brethren, char, chart, charm, chaff, 
chant, larch, march, parch, starch, chest, chess, chin, chick, 
chill, chit, chink, chintz, rich, chirrup, inch, pinch, clinch, 
flinch, winch, finch, filch, milch, clinch, trench, bench, 
wrench, quench, shin, ship, sharp, shark, shed, shell, shelf, 
shaft, shorn, shred, shrift, shrimp, shrill, flesh, mesh, fresh, 
dish, fish, wish, harsh, marsh, sheriff, shiver, relish, cherish, 
perish, freshet, finish, prudish, bluish, garnish, tarnish, var- 
nish, blemish, refresh. Attention can then be called to the 
words beginning with wh, which are pronounced (as they 
were written in Saxon) by uttering the h before the w ; as 
when, whet, whelk, whelp, whelm, wherry, whiz, whig, whip, 
whiff, whist, whisk, whirl, which, whimper, pronounced 
hwen, hwet, &c. 



84 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

I suppose I need not say that the consideration of one of 
the extra consonants will be enough for one lesson. 

The next step is to learn the diphthongs, that is, the proper 
— which I consider the only — diphthongs. Make the children 
pronounce oi, and see that two sounds are slid together ; and 
then let them write on their slates, in different columns, boil, 
coil, foil, soil, toil, moil, spoil, coin, join, groin, point, joint, 
joist, hoist, foist, moist, cloister, surloin, exploit, void, &c. ; 
also boy, coy, joy, toy, cloy, loyal, royal, envoy, enjoy, &c. . 

Then let them pronounce the diphthong ou, and write in 
one column the words out, our, thou, loud, proud, cloud, 
noun, bound, found, hound, mound, pound, round, sound, 
wound, bout, clout, flout, lout, gout, pout, rout, sprout, spout, 
shout, snout, stout, mouth, south, couch, crouch, slouch, pouch, 
vouch, roundabout, bounty, county, amount, abound, scoundrel, 
discount, expound, about, &c. ; and in another, how, cow, bow, 
mow, now, vow, owl, scowl, brow, prow, howl, gown, brown, 
crown, drown, cowl, fowl, crowd, clown, frown, vowel, towel, 
trowel, prowess. Call attention to the proper diphthong, which 
we write with what we call i long, (but it is no sound of lh 
at all,) and which the Romans wrote as a diphthong with two 
letters, ae and ai, pronouncing it as we do the i in ire. Then 
let them write in columns bind, find, grind, hind, blind, kind, 
mind, rind, wind, violet, dialect, inquiry, horizon, &c. 

This same diphthong is also written with the Greek y, — 
in my, thy, cry, try, fry, wry, fly, ply, asylum, dynasty, pet- 
rify, signify, vilify, vivify, simplify, rectify, edify, notify, &c. 

Call attention lastly, to the diphthong yu, written first 
with the letter u simply, as in unit, humid, fuel, cubic, stupid, 
putrid, mutual, funeral, singular, bitumen, acumen, nutri- 
ment ; and secondly with ew, as few, chew, pew, new, mew, 
mewl, eschew, sinew ; thirdly with iew, as view ; fourthly with 
eu, as in eulogy, European, &c. ; sometimes with eau, as in 
beauty and its compounds. 

There is no propriety in calling au a diphthong, as it is one 
sound, and not two sounds. It is one of the extra vowels of 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 85 

the English language, written when short with o (though it 
is no sound of o proper) a, aw, and oa. 

And now we come to the consideration of the extra vow 
els, beginning with this sound heard short in not, and long in 
the name of a carpenter's tool, awl. 

Explain that there is no character for this vowel in the 
Roman alphabet, because the sound was not in the Latin 
language, and then proceed to show how it is writ- 
ten in various ways : first with an o, as in bob, cob, 
fob, gob, job, mob, nob, rob, sob, cock, dock, hock, lock, 
clock, flock, mock, pock, frock, rock, crock, shock, sock, 
cod, hod, nod, pod, odd, shod, rod, sod, trod, doff, off, of, (pro- 
nounced ov,) cog, dog, fog, hog, jog, log, nog, doll, loll, poll, 
on, don, ton, pond, fond, blond, won, fop, drop, crop, lop, 
mop, pop, sop, top, chop, shop, stop, swop, prop, ox, box, 
fox, pox, moth, loth, froth, broth, lot, cot, dot, got, hot, jot, 
not, pot, rot, sot, tot, wot, grot, clot, shot, spot, boss, cross, 
dross, floss, loss, moss, toss, gloss, cost, frost, lost, tost, bond, 
fond, pond, pomp, romp. Then show that it is written 
sometimes with an a, as in all, fall, call, hall, gall, tall, 
wall, small, stall, ball, thrall, squall, squash, squad, squat, 
quart, war, dwarf, scald, bald, salt, halt, swab, ward, sward, 
warn, w T arp, warm, wand, want, was, wast, wash, swan, watch, 
swamp, waltz, wasp ; sometimes with au, as in daub, fraud, 
gaudy, fault, vault, paunch, craunch, laurel, haul, caul, maul, 
augury, autumnal ; and sometimes with aw, as in caw, daw, 
draw, haw, hawk, jaw, law, maw, paw, claw, straw, raw, 
thaw, squaw, saw, flaw, awl, shawl, bawl, brawn, drawn, 
awning, tawny, awkward, tawdry, sawyer, mawkish, lawful ; 
also with oa in broad. 

Another extra vowel, heard in the word man, is written, 
in default of a character for it, with a, as in cab, dab, gab, 
jab, nab, hack, back, jack, lack, pack, rack, crack, clack, 
black, bad, gad, glad, had, lad, mad, pad, sad, shad, bag, cag, 
fag, gag, hag, lag, nag, rag, crag, shag, sag, tag, wag, mall, shall, 
am, dam, flam, ham, sham, jam, an, ban, can, fan, clan, man, 



86 t KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

pan, ran, band, hand, land, stand, strand, grand, brand, cap, 
flap, gap, chap, lap, clap, map, nap, pap, sap, tap, at, bat, cat, fat, 
gat, hat, that, mat, pat, rat, brat, sat, spat, sprat, tat, vat. This 
same vowel is heard in the word plaid. 

A third extra vowel is heard in pun, and written generally 
with an u ; as cub, dub, hub, nub, rub, scrub, drub, tub, buck, 
duck, luck, cluck, muck, pluck, suck, stuck, truck, tuck, chuck, 
bud, cud, dud, mud, suds, stud, scud, buff, cuff, luff, bluff, muff, 
puff, stuff, ruff, scuff, bug, dug, drug, hug, jug, lug, slug, 
shrug, mug, snug, tug, cull, dull, gull, hull, mull, null, scull, 
gum, hum, drum, glum, plum, mum, rum, sum, bun, dun, gun, 
pun, run, sun, tun, stun, shun, up, cup, sup, bump, crump, 
dumps, gump, hump, jump, lump, mumps, pump, rump, us, 
buss, fuss, muss, rush, crush, gush, hush, mush, tush, bust, 
dust, gust, just, lust, must, rust, crust, but, cut, gut, hut, jut, 
nut, rut, tut, bunk, funk, sunk, drunk, trunk, hunt, put, blunt, 
grunt, brunt, lunch, bunch, hunch, munch, punch, bulk, sulk, 
skulk, gulp, pulp, gulf, tuft, bung, hung, lung, clung, rung, 
stung, swung, strung, musk, rusk, dusk, tusk, busk, mulct, 
buskin, musket, runlet, bucket, public. This same sound is 
written with o in mother, brother, some, come, &c, and ou in 
touch, and in rough, tough, enough, in which gh sounds like ff. 

The fourth extra vowel in English having no character for 
it is written, first, with i, as irk, shirk, dirk, kirk, mirk, quirk, 
bird, gird, whirl, quirl, girl, firm, first, chirp, shirt, sir, fir, 
stir, flirt, spirt, squirt, squirm, girdle, &c. Secondly, with e, 
as in err, her, herd, term, fern, pert, wert, overt, clerk, 
sperm, stern, insert, vermin, perhaps, perplex, persist, ex- 
pert, divert, superb, sterling, verdict, pervert, ferment, fer- 
vent, servant, perfect, serpent, partner, sever, several, inter, 
internal, fraternal, paternal, maternal, external, infernal, in- 
terdict, intermix, infer ; and generally the final er, as silver, 
toper, &c. Thirdly, this vowel is written with o, as in work, 
worm, word, worst, world, worth ; and the final or, as in ar- 
bor, ardor, vigor, &c. Fourthly, with an u, as in urn, burn, 
turn, churn, spurn, cur, fur, blur, bur, purr, spur, curb, sub- 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 87 

urb, surd, curd, surf, scurf, turf, turk, lurk, curl, furl, hurl, hur- 
dle ; and the finals ur, or, and ture, as arbor, honor, perjure, 
injure, &c. 

Another anomaly of English orthography is the silent e, 
at the end of so many words ; as doe, foe, hoe, roe, toe, cue, 
clue, blue, glue, flue, give, live, lucre, axle, noble, ogle, rep- 
tile, fertile, sterile, sextile, flexible, futile, missile, famine, jas- 
mine, destine, pristine, frigate, senate, reptile, legate, pensive, 
missive, active, captive, festive, motive, sportive, illusive, de- 
fective, objective, elective, invective, perspective, defensive, 
expensive, preventive, retentive, progressive, vindictive, re- 
strictive, instinctive, descriptive, explosive, corrosive, delu- 
sive, exclusive, inclusive, preclusive, intensive, palliative, 
narrative, relative, privative, lucrative, intuitive, infinitive, 
explicative, figurative, imitative, indicative, superlative, di- 
minutive, retrospective, barnacle, spectacle, miracle, pinnacle, 
article, particle, ventricle, edible, credible, flexible, audible, 
enoble, ignoble, sensible, senile, juvenile, feminine, eglantine, 
multiple, dissemble, assemble, quadrille, clandestine, intes- 
tine, determine, illumine, calibre, ferule, marble, pebble, 
treble, tremble, nibble, quibble, scribble, nimble, meddle, ped- 
dle, kindle, spindle, fiddle, riddle, griddle, quiddle, middle, 
twinkle, gargle, single, mingle, sparkle, speckle, sickle, tickle, 
trickle, dimple, simple, pimple, ripple, triple, pickle, grizzle, 
little, brittle, spittle, whittle, nettle, settle, kettle, startle, 
tinkle, sprinkle, valise, marine, ravine, machine, Alexandrine, 
creditable, and other words having the final syllable Me. 

This silent e final is found also in words which have the 
diphthong i ; as bide, glide, hide, chide, ride, side, slide, tide, 
wide, bride, fife, life, wife, rife, strife, bribe, jibe, dike, like, 
bile, file, mile, pile, tile, vile, wile, smile, while, style, dime, 
time, mime, chime, rime, prime, crime, dine, fine, thine, 
line, nine, mine, pine, spine, shine, wine, swine, twine, 
vine, kine, chine, pipe, wipe, ripe, gripe, snipe, tripe, stripe, 
type, vie, dire, fire, hire, mire, shire, sire, tire, lyre, wire, 
spire, squire, tribe, scribe, bribe, jibe, bite, kite, mite, smite, 



88 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

kite, write, white, trite, wise, lithe, blithe, writhe, strive, 
thrive, drive, wive, alive, size, prize, agonize, paralyze, sym- 
pathize, symbolize, &c. 

E may also be considered silent, it is so obscure, in many 
words ending in el and en ; as harden, bidden, golden, gar- 
den, sicken, quicken, thicken, stricken, broken, spoken, token, 
swollen, stolen, open, kitten, mitten, smitten, bitten, given, 
molten, driven, woven, frozen, mizzen, dizzen, tinsel, morsel, 
swivel, drivel, novel, model, level, bevel, eleven, seven, &c. 

U and e are both silent in the words rogue, brogue, fugue, 
eclogue, prologue, apologue, epilogue, intrigue, fatigue, syna- 
gogue, demagogue, pedagogue, decalogue, catalogue,. mysta- 
gogue, picturesque, burlesque, grotesque, pique, casique. 

U is silent in guess, guest, guard, gaunt, flaunt, taunt, 
daunt, avaunt, launch, staunch,, laundry, laundress, liquor, 
piquet, coquette, paroquet, exchequer, palanquin, guarantee, 
gauntlet, saunter, guilt, guitar, built, build, biscuit, four, 
pour, court, gourd, mould, bourn, soul, moult, shoulder, poul- 
try, coulter ; and w final, when preceded by vowels, ex- 
except when ow stands for ou diphthong, is silent. 

I is silent in fruit, suit, recruit, bruise, cruise, heifer, sur- 
feit, forfeit, counterfeit, Madeira, and y in they, prey, whey, 
obey, heyday, convey, survey, purvey. 

W is silent in bow, low, mow, row, sow, tow, slow, blow, 
glow, flow, snow, row, crow, grow, throw, bowl, own, blown, 
flown, grown, sown, mown, growth, owner, toward, below, 
lower, owner, disown, arrow, barrow, farrow, harrow, mar- 
row, fallow, gallows, hallow, shallow, sallow, tallow, bellow, 
fellow, yellow, shadow, burrow, furrow, billow, pillow, willow, 
widow, minnow, winnow, follow, hollow, morrow, sorrow. 

A is silent in boat, coat, goat, doat, moat, groat, bloat, 
throat, loath, oath, boast, coast, roast, coax, hoax, oak, soak, 
cloak, coach, poach, roach, broach, goad, load, coal, foal, goal, 
shoal, oaf, loaf, foam, loam, roam, loan, moan, groan, soap, 
oar, boar, soar, board, hoard, hoarse, hoary, cocoa, gloaming, 
encroach, reproach, approach. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 89 

The silent consonants are k before n — (doubtless pro- 
nounced in Saxon times,) in knit, knee, knell, kneel, knave, 
knife, knack, know, knead, knives, knock, knuckle. • 

Also, g before n, as gnat, gnaw, gnarl, gnome, gnash, reign, 
deign, sign, consign, assign, design, condign, benign, impugn, 
oppugn, arraign, campaign. 

Also, g before m, as phlegm, paradigm, &c. 

Also, ch in schism and drachm. 

Also, 1 before m, k, v, f, and d — as in alms, balm, calm, 
qualm, calf, half, talk, balk, stalk, chalk, walk, folks, salve, 
halves, calves, could, would, should, almond, salmon. 

Also, p before s, and sh, as in pshaw, pseudo, psalm, 
psalter. 

Also, b before t, as debt, doubt, subtle, indebted, un- 
doubted, &c. 

And b after m is silent, as lamb, jamb, climb, tomb, womb, 
numb, thumb, crumb, dumb, plumb, comb, hecatomb, cata- 
comb, currycomb, coxcomb, succumb. 

Also, n after m, as column, solemn, autumn, condemn, 
hymn, &c. 

And d before t in stadtholder. 

K is often unnecessarily used after c, and t before ch. 

T after s is silent in listen, glisten, hasten, chasten, christen, 
fasten, moisten, thistle, whistle, bristle, castle, nestle, pestle, 
gristle, jostle, justle, hustle, bustle, rustle, epistle, apostle, 
mistletoe, forecastle. 

C after s is silent in scion, scent, scythe, muscle, sceptre, 
science, sciatica, sciolism, scissure, scission, scissors, scenery, 
transcend, descend, descent, viscid, crescent, proboscis, fasci- 
nate, viscera, ascetic, excrescence, corpuscle, acquiesce, coal- 
esce, rescission, abscission, putrescence, ascendency, suscep- 
tible, irascible, viscidity, eviscerate, lascivious, resuscitate, 
scimitar, scintillate, phosphoresce, deliquesce, effloresce, effer- 
vesce, transcendent, condescend, condescension, convalescence, 
concupiscence, reminiscence, acquiescent, iridescent, arbor- 
escent, susceptibility, scenography, sciography. 



90 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

The initial h is often silent, as in hour, herbage, huge, 
honest, honor, humor ; also, after r, rhomboid, rheum, rhyme, 
myrrh, ghost, aghast, catarrh, rhubarb, catarrhal, rheumatic, 
dishabille, rhapsody, posthumous, hemorrhage, &c. 

W is silent before r in wry, write, writhe, wrath, wreath, 
wreathe, wrong, wretch, wright, wrist, wriggle, wrinkle ; and 
before h in who, whose, whom, whoop, whole. 

What is especially puzzling about the English orthogra- 
phy, is the unnecessary use of the same letter for different 
sounds. Thus s does not always sound s — but sometimes 
sounds like z. (If all the sounds z were written z, it would 
make our language look as full of z's as the Polish.) • 

After all the sonorous labials, gutturals, and dentals, we 
cannot help sounding z — as cabs, hods, rags, etc. ; also, be- 
fore m, as heroism, paroxysm, somnambulism, materialism, &c. ; 
in monosyllables ending with a single s, as is, was, as, has, 
his, hers, ours, theirs ; also, in daisy, reside, desire, noisy, 
bosom, visage, closet, resign, music, prison, reason, pansy, 
tansy, disown, preside, pleasant, peasant, prosaic, present, 
presence, Tuesday, measles, cosmos, pleasure, measure, treas- 
ure, leisure, disclosure, enclosure, composure, kerseymere, 
resolute, devisor, revisal, reprisal, basilisk, deposit, courtesan, 
raspberry, residue, venison, disaster, division, plausible, feasi- 
ble, basilicon, presbytery, resolute, deposit, president, vis- 
ionary, perquisite, exquisite, composite, resentment, carousal, 
espousal, disposal. 

Instead of c or k we have in many words ch — as Christ, 
chasm, chyle, conch, chrome, ache, scheme, school, chaos, 
epoch, chorus, chronic, echo, anchor, tetrarch, trochee, ar- 
chives, scholar, schooner, monarch, hierarch, chronicle, chrys- 
alis, technical, mechanic, patriarch, pentateuch, bacchanal, 
saccharine, chamomile, eucharist, character., archetype, or- 
chestra, catechize, catechism, alchemy, chemistry, schedule, 
paschal, chaldee, stomach, lilach, sumach, chimera, heptarchy, 
lachrymal. 

All the above words are from the Greek, and so are those 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 91 

in which f is written with ph, as sylph, lymph, sphere, sphinx, 
graphic, phalanx, phantom, orphan, dolphin, camphor, pamph- 
let, sulphur, zephyr, hyphen, trophy, philter, phaeton, sphe- 
roid, alphabet, emphasis, prophesy, prophecy, caliphate, 
sophistry, &c. 

The sound of s.is substituted for the Latin guttural (hard c) 
in acid, placid, facile, tacit, process, precinct, docile, recipe, 
illicit, cinder, fleecy, census, pencil, precept, accede, recede, 
concede, cite, pacify, lacerate, macerate, taciturn, oscillate, 
precede, implicit, explicit, decimal, precipice, specify, spe- 
cimen, abbacy, imbecile, indocile, solicit, felicity, atrocity, 
ferocity, rapacity, tenacity, veracity, vivacity, voracity, au- 
dacity, precocity, simplicity, lubricity, rusticity, municipal, 
medicinal, rhinoceros, publicity, diocesan, mendacity, men- 
dicity, duplicity, elasticity, pertinacity, incapacity, electricity, 
multiplicity, authenticity, duodecimo, anticipates, necessary, 
countenance, abstinence, and all other words which end in 
ce. 



* 



The sound of j is substituted for that of g (the sonorous 
guttural) in germ, genus, genius, angel, gentile, pigeon, dun- 
geon, surgeon, sturgeon, bludgeon, curmudgeon, sergeant, 
pageant, vengeance, stingy, dingy, &c, manger, danger, stran- 
ger, religion, badger, budget, gibbet, giblets, allegiance, pla- 
giarism, gibe, (sometimes and better jibe ;) all words ending 
in ge, as bilge, huge, barge, large, and all ending in dge, as 
wedge, ledge, pledge, hedge, sledge, fledge, ridge, bridge, 
midge, drudge, judge, lodge ; all words ending gious, as pro- 
digious, egregious, sacrilegious, &c. ; or in geous, as courage- 
ous, &c. ; or in age, as cottage, plumage, foliage, &c. 

The extra consonant which we sometimes write sh, is writ- 
ten variously ; 1st, simply with s, as in sugar, sensual, and 
sure, and its compounds ; 2dly, with ss, in cassia ; 3dly, 

* Nearly every one of these words are derived from the Latin, but the} 7 
come into the English language from the Norman-French in which they 
were already corrupted. All nouns in ce are from Latin nouns in tia, and 
ought to have been written with se instead of ce, except peace and voice, 
which come from the Latin pace and voce. 



92 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

with ci, in magician, logician, patrician, optician, musician, 
academician, geometrician, mathematician ; and in a multitude 
of words ending in ious, as specious, gracious, spacious, av- 
aricious, auspicious, pertinacious, judicious', suspicious, loqua- 
cious, audacious, sagacious, fallacious, capacious, rapacious, 
tenacious, delicious, malicious, pertinacious, officious, capri- 
cious, ferocious, atrocious, precocious, voracious, veracious, 
and perhaps some others ; also, in words ending with al, as 
official, judicial, provincial, commercial, artificial, beneficial; 
and in sociable, associate, appreciable and appreciate, enun- 
ciate, dissociate, excruciate, depreciate, emaciate, denunciate, 
renunciate, prescient, omniscient ; 4thly, with ce, in cetaceous, 
filaceous, herbaceous, caduceous, cretaceous, testaceous, crus- 
taceous, argillaceous, gallinaceous ; 5thly, with ti, in factious, 
fractious, captious, vexatious, facetious, licentious, factitious, 
propitious, flagitious, nutritious, expeditious, superstitious, 
adventitious ; vitiate, expatiate, ingratiate, insatiate, initiate ; 
partial, martial, nuptial, initial, essential, substantial, creden- 
tial, potential, prudential, solstitial, impartial, penitential, 
equinoctial, influential, reverential, pestilential, providential, 
circumstantial, ratio, and all words ending in tion, as ration, 
nation, station, notion, diction, fiction, friction, fraction, potion, 
action, junction, suction, section, mention, libation, vacation, 
vocation, location, exhalation, installation, implication, flagel- 
lation, appellation, revelation, education, &c. ; 6thly, with ch, 
as chicanery, seneschal. 

In many words is a superfluous t, as in hitch, ditch, pitch, 
witch, switch, stitch, flitch, stretch, sketch, etch, fetch, wretch, 
notch, botch, hotch, potch, watch, latch, match, batch, catch, 
hatch, patch, hutch. 

In some words is a superfluous d, as badge, ledge, sledge. 

And a superfluous k is very common. 

Some of the above substitutions are perhaps natural 
enough, in consequence of the fact of extra sounds, having 
no special characters for them in the alphabet, which was 
phonography for the Latin language only. But there are 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 93 

the same perplexing changes with respect to the regular 
vowels. 

Thus, in the case of e, when it is long, as in fete, — we 
find it written iri five ways, — ay, ai, ea, ey, and simply a. 

As 1st, aye, day, bay, fay, gay, hay, pay, may, nay, say, 
ray, dray, bray, gray, fray, play, pray, array, assay, allay, 
display, portray, dismay, mislay. 

2d. Aid, braid, laid, maid, paid, afraid, staid, bait, gait, 
wait, bail, fail, hail, jail, mail, nail, pail, quail, rail, sail, tail, 
wail, frail, flail, snail, trail, avail, entail, assail, fain, gain, lain, 
main, pain, rain, vain, wain, train, grain, brain, stain, sprain, 
swain, drain, dainty, portrait, saint, faint, paint, quaint, plaint, 
aim, claim, maim, tailor, jailer, traitor, sailor, raiment, caitiff, 
plaintiff, prevail, contain, chilblain, sustain, upbraid, declaim, 
exclaim, proclaim. 

3d. Break, steak, great. 

4thly. They, convey, survey, &c. 

5thly. Any, many, legation, asparagus, virago, volcano, 
verbatim, arcanum, potato, octavo, tornado, and words end- 
ing in ace, ade, afe, age, ake, ale, ame, ane, ape, ase, ate, 
athe, ave, ary, aste, aze, base, case, face, grace, lace, mace, 
pace, ace, bade, fade, shade, made, wade, safe, chafe, cage, 
sage, rage, gage, stage, page, wage, plumage, foliage, cottage, 
bake, cake, lake, make, quake, rake, take, sake, brake, flake, 
bale, dale, gale, hale, male, pale, sale, tale, whale, vale, bane, 
cane, fane, lane, mane, pane, sane, wane, vane, bathe, lathe, 
swathe, cave, gave, lave, nave, pave, rave, drave, grave, 
shave, stave, crave, ate, bate, fate, date, gate, hate, late, 
mate, pate, rate, sate, crate, prate, plate, state, skate, slate, 
waste, baste, haste, paste, chaste, taste, came, blame, dame, 
fame, frame, game, lame, flame, name, same, tame, frame, 
shame, cape, gape, nape, rape, grape, drape, crape, blaze, 
daze, gaze, haze, maze, raze, craze, graze, glaze, honorary, 
actuary, tributary, sedentary, primary, salutary, solitary, 
burglary, contrary, &c. 



94 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

So for the sound of I long, as in marine, we have some- 
times e, sometimes ee, sometimes ea, sometimes ie, as — 

1st. — He, she, we, me, mete, glebe, theme, breve, veto, 
hero, zero, negro, ether, theist, deist, edict, fever, lever, 
metre, zenith, extreme, supreme, impede, serene, convene, 
gangrene, austere, cohere, adhere, revere, severe, interfere, 
persevere, secret, complete, concrete, secrete, obsolete, the- 
orem, torpedo, inherent. 

2d. — Fee, bee, lee, glee, flee, free, tree, see, three, eel, feel, 
keel, reel, peel, wheel, deem, seem, keen, green, queen, teens, 
ween, deed, feed, heed, meed, need, reed, seed, bleed, creed, 
leek, meek, sleek, seek, week, cheek, beef, reef, keep, sweep, 
weep, deep, peep, sleep, beech, speech, leech ; spleen, com- 
peer, between, beseech, discreet, steeple, vaneer, career, tu- 
reen, moreen, careen, redeem, agreed, settee, razee, degree, 
agree, decree, grandee, linseed, peevish, esteem, devotee, lega- 
tee, referee, repartee, patentee, absentee, privateer, mule- 
teer, overseer, volunteer, chanticleer, domineer, gazetteer, gen- 
teel, indiscreet, steelyard, thirteen, &c. 

3d. — Pea, tea, yea, flee, plea, bohea ; each, beach, breach, 
bleach, teach, meach, peach ; bleak, sneak, streak, speak, 
squeak, beak, peak, creak, teak, creak, freak, tweak, weak, 
bead, lead, read, plead, deaf, leaf, sheaf, beam, ream, dream, 
cream, stream, team, steam, seam, deal, heal, leal, meal, peal, 
seal, steal, veal, zeal, bean, dean, lean, mean, wean, yean ; 
heap, cheap, leap, reap ; ear, fear, hear, blear, clear, smear, 
near, spear, rear, drear, year, beard, east, beast, feast, least, 
yeast, eat, beat, feat, heat, meat, neat, peat, seat, wheat, 
bleat, cheat, treat, heath, sheathe, breathe, heave, weave, leave, 
treacle, eagle, eaglet, squeamish, dreary, weary, creature, 
impeach, anneal, appeal, reveal, endear, appear, arrear, be- 
smear, defeat, release, increase, decrease, beneath, repeat, en- 
treat, retreat, bereave, bequeath, cochineal, eatable, easter- 
ly, deanery. 

4th. Where the e is silent ; either, neither, seizure, surfeit, 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 95 

inveigle, forfeit, mullein, fief, chief, thief, brief, grief, field, 
shield, wield, yield, fiend, priest, belief, sieve, grieve, belief, 
achieve, retrieve, relieve, aggrieve, cashier, brigadier, grena- 
dier, cannonier, cavalier, cordelier; also receive, conceive, 
perceive, deceive, deceit, conceit. 

The sound of u is also written oe, o, ew, oo, and ou 
(silent o), shoe, canoe, woman, chew, brew, screw, threw, 
shrew, sew, dew, few, jew, mew, new, pew, coo, too, loo, woo, 
tattoo, bamboo, hindoo, food, good, hood, mood, rood, stood, 
wood, book, cook, hook, look, nook, rook, took, cool, drool, fool, 
stool, wool, spool, boom, broom, doom, bloom, groom, loom, 
gloom, room, boon, spoon, coon, swoon, loon, shalloon, moon, 
picaroon, noon, soon, poltroon, cocoon, platoon, festoon, mon- 
soon, baboon, coop, droop, hoop, loop, poop, stoop, boor, moor, 
poor, goose, moose, noose, boot, coot, foot, hoot, loot, moot, 
root, soot, booty, roof, behoof, aloof, reproof, proof, groove, 
soothe, smooth, tooth, booth, boost, roost, pantaloon. 

It is also written with a silent o, as in tour, croup, group, 
youth, wound, souvenir, surtout, cartouche, contour, amour, 
uncouth, accoutre, moustache, tambourine. 

I have said that I give to my scholars " Mother Goose," as 
soon as they have mastered my first " Nursery Reading-Book." 
But this is for recreation ; while all the important ivork is 
making the groups of exceptional words upon their slates, at 
my dictation. Sometimes these can be written on the black- 
board, and copied into little books, by the children. When 
there are several ways of writing the same sound, I make 
several columns, and put at the head of each a word thus : — 

ee, 
see, 

and then, mentioning different words, ask in which column 
they are to be put ? The children are greatly interested in 
this exercise ; and the effect of it is, to make them know the 
precise spelling of the words. When a column is finished, 
they are called on to read the words, and sometimes to re- 
peat the group by heart. 



h 

pin, 



me, 



le, 
grieve ; 



96 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

I have not put all the words in the language in my groups ; 
but enough for the purpose, — they can be filled up from the 
teacher's and children's memories. 

The greater the anomaly, the more easily it is remembered, 
because the specimens are few, and the anomaly amuses. 

Thus, I sometimes begin (after I have shown them how to 
write the extra vowels and consonants, and the diphthongs,) 
with the word phthisic ; asking them all to write it on their 
slates as they think it should be ; and then writing it myself, 
as it is, on the board. So I ask them to write through, which 
they will write thru. I then surprise them by writing it 
on the black-board, and putting in the silent vowel and con- 
sonants. Then I ask them to write bough ; and then though, 
and dough ; then trough, which they will write troth ; then 
laugh, draught, tough, which they will write with f for the 
gh. In reviewing the lesson the next day, all these words 
can be written in their manuscript books, with a lead-pencil. 
The book, which is the best one to follow Mother Goose, and 
perhaps might precede it, is Mrs. Mann's " Primer of Reading 
and Drawing." This begins with about twenty pages of 
words that can be read at once by those who have used the 
" First Nursery Reading-Book," because the Roman alphabet 
is a phonography for it all. Mrs. Mann's book is full of 
sentences that have beautiful meanings, and it contains some 
attractive stories. It has been out of print a long time ; but 
a new edition is about being put to press. 

But any book can be used by a person of judgment. The 
mother of the Wesleys always taught her children to read 
in the Bible from the beginning:. 

In good reading, words are not only to be pronounced, but 
to be read with expression ; and this end is gained by its 
coming after object-learning. Unless a child conceives what 
a word means, he cannot have the appropriate emotion, and 
without the emotion he cannot read with expression. In 
hurrying children on to read faster than they can understand 
and feel, permanent bad habits are acquired, and especially 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 97 

the habit of reading without sufficiently filling the lungs 
with breath ; and this not only makes disagreeable reading 
for the hearer ; but is very injurious to the health of the 
reader. 

Dr. H. F. Briggs, of New York, who teaches elocution as 
a means of health, proposes that there should be exercises 
of vocalizing, — uttering each vowel sound to express all 
kinds of emotion which the special vowel will express, and 
in all quantities and accents. Children are all naturally 
histrionic and will be amused in doing this. The vowel 
sounds educate emotions in those who utter them, and 
awaken them in those who hear. When pronounced with 
feeling, they come from the chest and abdomen and not from 
the head merely, and so give a general internal exercise that 
is healthy. Bronson's " Elocutionist " will give a teacher 
much assistance in this branch, though he has not worked 
out the thing so completely as Dr. Briggs has done. 

It is proper to remark to those who measure the success 
of a school by the rapidity with which it teaches a child to 
read, that the thorough attainment of the art here proposed, 
requires time. But when attained, much is gained besides 
the mere reading, — namely, development of body, mind, and 
heart. 

Besides, to those who are hereafter to be taught other 
languages it will be found of great advantage to have asso- 
ciated the vowel sounds of ark, ebb, ill, old, and rue, with 
the characters a, e, i, o, u, respectively. See for the proof of 
this, some articles on " Kraitsir's Significance of the Alpha- 
bet," published in "The North American Review" for 1840. 



98 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

GRAMMAR AND LANGUAGES. 

Mrs. Mann has suggested, in the last part of this' volume, 
the first exercises in grammar. But grammar is the most 
abstract of sciences. There are at present few children 
sent to Kindergartens, who are not too young for the abstract- 
ing processes of classing words into parts of speech. 

But it is a lesson of orthography, to lead the children to 
make the few changes which there are in English words, 
to denote grammatical modifications. For instance, let them 
write cat, and then say — "If you are talking about more 
than one cat, what do you say ? " They will say cats. Let 
them write at the head of two columns — cat and cats. Af- 
ter some exercises on words adding s only, tell them to write 
box, and ask, " What if there are more than one ? " Then 
go on and get groups of other irregularities, as changing f 
into ves, y into ies, &c. Having gone over the nouns, and 
told all their changes, for number, also letting the children 
write a list of the nouns that do not change for number, go 
into verbs, and give the few personal terminations thus : tell 
the children to write, 1 cry. Then say, " Would you say 
George cry ? " u No," they will reply, " George cries" I say, 
" I have a book ; but should I say, George have a book ? " 
They will say, — " No ; George has a book." Also by ask- 
ing questions whose answers shall give the comparison of 
adjectives, these can be written ; and finally the past tense 
and past participles of irregular verbs. In my own Kin- 
dergarten I have given to about half a dozen children who 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 99 

know how to read fluently, and can print very prettily, a 
little Latin. It is but a quarter of an hour's lesson, and 
is conducted in this wise : — Write down am. Now, that 
means love in Latin ; but if you want to say he loves you, 
add at, which makes amat. Write down ar. That means 
plough ; if you want to write he ploughs you write what ? 
A bright child said arat. Now write down cant. That 
means sing. Now if you want to say he sings, you add 
what? at, then it is cantat. But if you want to say to 
love you must add are to am. They all said amare. Now, 
if you want to say to plough ? arare ; and to sing, cantare. 
Now make the whole sentence, he loves to sing. What is 
it he loves ? They all wrote amat cantare. Now write he 
loves to plough. They wrote amat arare. I took the hint 
from Harkness's edition of " Arnold's First Lessons," and gave 
them six variations on the four regular conjugations, the 
infinitive and the third person singular of the present im- 
perfect and future indicative, and Latinized their own names ; 
and they were greatly entertained to improvise sentences, 
the most complicated of which was, O Helena, Anna loves 
to dance, Maria loves to sing. I give them no grammatical 
terms, but only English meanings, and shall not give any 
cases but the nominative and vocative at present ; but I think 
I shall teach them to vary verbs throughout all the conjuga- 
tions. It is perfectly easy to give so much of Latin gram- 
mar to children in the Kindergarten, because it will not 
involve the use of a book. They can have a manuscript 
book into which they can write their words and sentences, 
in print-letters. 

French, so far as it can be taught by merely conversing 
with the children, is legitimate in the Kindergarten ; also 
any other modern language. But let there be no books 
used, nor should French be written by the children, for it 
will confuso their English spelling, and not, like Latin words, 
aid it. In my Kindergarten, about a quarter of an hour a 
day is given to making French phrases by all but the small- 



100 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

est children. They have also been greatly interested in 
learning the French words of a play, which is a useful ex- 
ercise in pronunciation. I will give the words here : — 

L'Esturgeon {Sturgeon). 
Commere Perche, 
Je vous salue ! 
Comment vous portez-vous ? 

La Perche (Perch). 
Je me porte tres bien, et vous ? 

Quelle est l'heure pour le ragout 
Fait de sole et de morue ? 

La Sole et la Morue (Sole and Cod). 
Commere Perche, je vous salue ; 
Nous autres ne serons pas un ragout. 

L'Esturgeon. 
Commere Baleine, 
Comment vous portez-vous ? 

La Baleine (Whale). 
Tres bien, et vous ? 

L'Esturgeon. 
Pouvez-vous sauter en haut 

Comme moi, 
Au dessus de l'eau ? 

La Baleine. 
Je ne puis sauter si haut ; 
Mais je saurais faire jeter de l'eau. 

L'Esturgeon. 
Commere Hareng, je vous salue, 
Dites moi, je prie, ou allez-vous ? 

La Hareng (Herring). 
Je vais chez moi, chercher les jeunes, 
Alors nous irons h l'ocean. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 101 

L'EsTURGEON. 
Commere Brocliet, je vous salue ! 
Commere Brochet, que mangez-vous ? 

Le Brochet (Pike). 
Je mange des truites 

Pour mon dejeuner, 
Et des eperlans 

Pour mon diner. 

L'Esturgeon. 
Commere truite, 
Je vous salue ! 
Dites moi, je vous prie, 
Qu'avez-vous ? 

La Truite {Trout). 
Ah, par exemple, 

J'ai bien grand peur ; 
Voila le brocheton 
Meme si de bonne heure ! 

L'Esturgeon. 
Commere Requin, 

Je vous salue ! 
Que faites-vous la 
Aupres du bateau. 
Le Requin (Shark). 
Je veux manger 

Le petit gar£on, 
Qui peche dans l'eau. 
Pour l'eperlan. 

L'Eperlan (Smelt). 
Petit garcon, 

Je vous salue ! 
Voila la Requin 
Pres de moi, et pres de vous. 

(Tous lespoissons se plongent.) 



102 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 

The play consists in each fish being rej>resented by a 
child ; and the little boy also. As the Sturgeon asks her 
questions, she jumps up and down, and as the fishes answer, 
they jump up and down, till all are in motion. But, before 
it is played, the whole must be learnt, — which is nearly a 
winter's work. 



KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 103 



CHAPTER XIII. 



GEOGRAPHY. 



Mr. Sheldon, in his " Elementary Instruction," has shown 
the way in which we may begin to teach geography without 
books. To proceed in that way, up to the point of drawing 
all maps, is feasible in a Kindergarten, if the children stay 
long enough. My children learn a great deal about the 
geographical locality of animals, from the natural history 
lessons given over the blocks. A " Picturesque Geography," 
compiled by Mrs. Mann, from the most brilliant descriptions 
of travellers, may by and by be printed, and it would be 
a good book to read to children. It should be read slowly, 
requiring them to tell what it makes them see in their fancy. 
This comprises a great deal of physical geography, and is a 
desirable precursor of political geography, which will be 
studied to most advantage by and by, with history. (But 
history is altogether beyond the Kindergarten.) 

Children who have been educated in the Kindergarten 
thus far, will learn to draw maps. Mr. Sheldon proposes 
beginning with a map of the room, of the play-ground, and 
of the town. Guyot's " Map-Drawing Cards," drawn by E. 
Sandoz, under the direction of Professor Arnold Guyot, and 
published by Charles Scribner, 124 Grand Street, New 
York, may here come in play. 



104 KINDERGARTEN GUIDE. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE SECRET OF POWER. 



In the foregoing pages I have done what I can, to make 
a Kindergarten Guide ; not only for the use of those who 
undertake the new education, but in order to give parents 
a definite idea of the value of the new education to their 
children, and how they may aid rather than hinder its 
legitimate effect. Parents who live in places so isolated as 
to make a Kindergarten impossible, may also get some hints 
how to supply the want in some measure, by becoming them- 
selves the playmates of their children. 

I think it will be readily inferred, from what I have said, 
that the secret of power and success is gradualism. Any 
child can learn anything, if time and opportunity is given to 
go step by step. Then learning becomes as easy and agree- 
able as eating and drinking. Every degree of knowledge, 
also, must be practically used as soon as attained. It then 
becomes a power ; makes the child a power in nature ; and 
prepares him, when his spirit shall come into union with the 
God of Nature, and Father of Human Spirits, to become a 
power over Nature — " for the glory of God and relief of 
man's estate." 



MOEAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 



LETTER I. 

My dear Anna, — I had heard of your intention of 
keeping school before you wrote to me, and had rejoiced for 
the good cause as only one can do who knows your peculiar 
qualifications for it. I have been full of the purpose of an- 
swering your letter, to tell you how joyfully I look forward 
to the realization of some of my wishes through your help, 
such as that of perfecting some beautiful plan of education, 
which you and I, with our faith in perfectibility, might in- 
vent, but which I could not make alone. When we parted 
many years since, in one of those beautiful porticos of the 
temple of knowledge, where we had together been warmed 
by the fires of genius, and where our sympathy (perhaps I 
should say yours) had rekindled a certain torch of enthusiasm 
that had been long quenched by adversity — (I sadly fear it 
is smouldering again under the ashes of freshly-buried hope) 
— I little expected to meet you again in my favorite walk, 
made fragrant by the breath of little children. If we had 
chanced to meet often enough since then, we should have 
found much to reunite us, for my best teachers have been 
certain wise mothers ; — indeed, the only schools in which I 
have found the instruction I needed, have been the nurseries 
and firesides to which I have been admitted, often through 
my loving interest in the little flowers that bloomed around 
them. I could tell you, if I dared, how many times I have 
wished I could be queen of such kingdoms, for the sake of 
the younger subjects of those realms, for I have learned 
quite as much from the mistakes as from the wisdom I have 
witnessed. 

My desire to gather all I could, from the efforts and ex- 
perience of others, once tempted me on an exploring expe- 
dition through our much vaunted Primary Schools. What 
5* 



106 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

would you say if I were to tell you that I met with but one 
spirit kindred to my own in the whole circuit ? Among all 
the hard, knotty women, young and old, whom I found pre- 
siding over youthful destinies in this extensive organization, 
I found one lovely young creature who loved all her scholars, 
and who, by the power of this love, contrived partially to 
mitigate the horrors of benches without backs, long rote 
spelling-lessons, crowded and ill-ventilated rooms, tedious 
periods of idleness in which little darlings had to sit up 
straight and not speak or fidget (which last I consider one of 
the prerogatives of childhood). Her face radiated sunshine, 
her voice was music itself, and yet firm, and she often varied 
her routine of exercises, prescribed by the primary school 
committee, with a pleasant little story to illustrate some prin- 
ciple she wished the children to act upon. She was the only 
one who had interpolated a regular entertaining lesson into 
the routine, and this she effected by nipping some of the 
prescribed lessons five minutes each, so as to save twenty for 
her little treatise upon some interesting subject of natural his- 
tory. I quite agreed with her that it was a species of petty 
larceny for which she would be acquitted in the courts above. 
I could describe sad, heart-breaking scenes of youthful 
misery and terror, injustice and daily cruelty in these 
schools. In several cases my indignation was so much 
aroused that I was obliged to leave the room to avoid show- 
ing my excited feelings. My sympathy for suppressed 
yawns, limbs suddenly outstretched, or wry faces made be- 
hind the teachers' backs ; tearful eyes, sleepy little heads 
nodding on fat shoulders, was so great, that I often smiled 
upon them when the teacher did not see me. I returned 
to my own little free republic, after spending one of my 
vacation weeks thus, more resolved than ever not to eoerce 
babes into the paths of knowledge. Many a spine had its 
first bend there, I doubt not, and many a child learned to 
hate school in such scenes of discomfort. I have no doubt 
there were among the teachers many conscientious ones who 
did as well as they knew how under such a system. If such 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 107 

schools could be presided over by genius, and sucli geniuses 
could be left to their own judgment about what to teach and 
how to teach it, the experience of Mr. Alcott in his first In- 
fant School among the poor of the North End proves that 
primary Education can be made for all, what we can make 
it who have the advantage of teaching in our own parlors. 

It is astonishing to me that greater improvements have 
not already been made in this public school education. 
Often when I am sitting in my pleasant school-room with 
these favored children of wealthy parents around me, my 
thoughts recur to those crowded rooms, and the only remedy 
I see is, that school committees shall be formed of women. I 
believe many of the women I saw teaching in those primary 
schools would do better if left to their own instincts about 
the children. They have no liberty whatever, except such 
stolen liberty as I mentioned in the case of Miss E. What 
do men know about the needs of little children just out of 
nurseries ? If I were one of the school committee, with 
carte blanche, I would have " stir-the-mush " or "puss-in- 
the-corner " among the exercises, with singing every hour, 
and marching and clapping of hands. And I would have 
well-ventilated rooms instead of such hot, suffocating places, 
warmed by large iron stoves. 

And as I see the poor and neglected children in the 
streets, or in their own wretched houses, and how they live 
and grovel in low practices, gradually losing the sweet inno- 
cence of infantile expression, and becoming coarse and vio- 
lent, even brutal, I wonder still more at the torpidity of 
society upon this subject. Nothing is such a proof of its 
selfishness as this neglect. Nothing makes me feel so keen- 
ly the need of a new organization of things. I do not like 
the thought of merging the sacred family relation in com- 
munities where all live together in public as it were, but it 
seems as if something might be done for the children of the 
needy that is not yet done. These poor city children are 
sequestered even from the influences of Nature. How 



108 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

strange that the more favored individuals should not seek 
every means to give them what culture they can have amid 
these brick walls. So much might be done by the help of 
the salient imagination of childhood, that we should be 
helped more than half way by blessed Nature herself. I 
often take an unfashionable walk inside the Mall on Sunday 
afternoon, when the Irish people bring their babes to play 
upon the green. I think it is the best institution in the city, 
and it would be a good idea to appoint a Commissioner in 
each ward to bring all the street children there every day 
and watch them while they play, and see that all have fair 
play. If school committees were formed of women, I think 
such an office might be created. 

What faith we need to forgive heaven for the things that 
are! " How much that is, is not right!," I am sometimes 
tempted to exclaim. I have no idea, however, that Pope 
meant anything but the eternal is, when he wrote " What- 
ever is, is right." It would have been better for superficial 
thinkers, if he had never said it however, for I often hear it 
quoted to defend what I consider the marring, not the 
making of God's plans. I have no doubt there is a remedy 
for every individual case of misery in this world, if eyes 
were only open to see it, but this couching process is the 
needful tiling, and that God has left us to think out for our- 
selves. We know that there are millions who live and die 
in ignorance of all that makes God God, or a Father. To 
these he is only the being that created them, and they may 
well ask, " Why did he make us ? to suffer? to sin?" — for 
they are conscious only of the irregularities of that creation 
by which they are tortured. They never see the wonderful 
adaptation of things to each other ; — they know nothing of 
the harmonies of their being with the being of others, or with 
Nature. The sort of education they get in cities, where life 
is stirring briskly around them, and each one seems scramb- 
ling to get the best morsel for himself, only makes them 
wor^e, unless something is done to evoke order for them out 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 109 

of this chaos. Their belief in Deity is a superstitious feeling 
about some supernatural power that exercises dominion over 
them, and subjects them to an imperious necessity. In the 
agony of death they cry aloud for fear ; for they know they 
have made their fellow-men suffer, and death is a mirror 
that holds them up to themselves. Conscience breathes upon 
the glass, and in the dissolving picture its countenance is 
recognized, — but this is a base fear, and cannot be called an 
aspiration. To make sure the foundations of faith in God, 
one must know what God has done for him. Man must be 
made acquainted with his own nature before God's benevo- 
lence can be realized. If I did not think ignorance was at 
the root of all human evil, I should not have any hope ; but 
though its kingdom is very large, no despot can be so easily 
driven from the throne. I hope all this does not seem ir- 
relevant to the matter we are discussing ; it brings me nearer 
to the point I wished to reach. I believe in that redemption 
which knowledge and principle combined bring to the soul 
that has slumbered in darkness. Its recuperative power is 
its most glorious attribute. The tendency of the character 
is so often imparted in earliest youth, that if this is right, if 
the first impressions of life and its author are the true ones, 
the rest of the education may almost with impunity be left 
to what is called chance. But if a child lives to the age of 
eight or ten years, without a ray of light which will explain 
his existence and position to himself; or lead him through 
Nature up to "God ; it must be difficult to inspire him after- 
wards with the true filial feeling toward his heavenly par- 
ent. And if, by a longer period of darkness, he has found 
that in a certain sense he can live without God in the world, 
he will stand a poor chance of realizing that he cannot do so 
in ordinary life after the period of impressible youth is past. 
I believe the soul will to all eternity have renewed chances 
to redeem itself; but I cannot easily give up this first life. 
When I think of the beautiful adaptations of the world to our 
wants ; of the exquisite gratification the knowledge of thtvs 



110 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

brings to the mind ; of the harmonies of our existence with 
all other existences ; and of the power of virtue to triumph 
over the earthward tendencies of this double human nature, 
and to sacrifice the present to the future good ; — when I 
think of what the perfect man can be, — I cannot be recon- 
ciled that one should live and not have the keys to unlock 
this part of the universe. Childhood is in our power. The 
helpless little beings must be taken care of. The world waits 
upon the babe, as has truly been said ; and is not this one 
of those beautiful provisions of Nature which show us how 

" There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them as we will ! " 

" The child is father of the man," indeed ; and while the 
heart bounds lightly, let us teach this youthful father the re- 
ligion of Nature, which he can understand. When he comes 
to riper years he will be ready to comprehend the religion of 
the Spirit, without danger of superstition or bigotry. 

One obstacle to such instruction in Christendom is, doubt- 
less, the very prevalent feeling that the study of Nature leads 
to scepticism about revealed religion. This injury has been 
done to religion's self by the fact that a few learned men have 
been scoffers at Christianity, or rather at what has been ac- 
cepted as Christianity, and it is the association of their names 
which is the foundation of the prejudice. The discrepancy 
also between the discoveries of science and the imagery of 
the Hebrew poets who sang about creation, is another cause ; 
but since Mr. Silliman has ventured to say that there prob- 
ably were a great many deluges, the ice of that difficulty has 
been cracked in our community. 

I see no reason why simple religious lessons, like those 
Mr. Waterston gives in his Sunday-school, may not be given 
in the public schools. You will say, we must have Mr. Wa- 
terston to do it, (and that is true indeed, now,) but when the 
public mind is ready for such instruction, such teachers will 
come up to supply the demand. 

My first introduction to natural science was in listening to 



MOEAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. Ill 

instruction of this kind given to children older than myself, 
under the sanction of a mother's authority. They were les- 
sons in Astronomy and Chemistry, given before there were 
any elementary books upon such subjects ; and they so kin- 
dled my imagination, when a very young child, and gave me 
such a realizing sense of the presence of God around me, 
whom I had already known as a Heavenly Father, who took 
care of me and of all men, by night as well as by day, that 
from that time I never lost the child's sense of nearness, or 
felt any of those fears of the supernatural which haunt the 
imagination of uninstructed childhood. And yet I was in 
the habit of listening to the stories of an old crone who be- 
lieved in the witches of Salem, where she had always resided, 
as firmly as she believed in the God that made her. When 
I first heard the remark that the study of Nature tended to 
make men atheistic, I resented it with indignation, though 
but a child. 

This, then, is the kind of teaching that I think adapted to 
childhood. It need not be exclusive, but let it predominate. 
Other faculties, beside the emotions of wonder and venera- 
tion, may be cultivated side by side with these. Memory, 
comparison, judgment, and calculation may be strengthened 
by a judicious and well-proportioned teaching of the elements 
of languages and numbers, thus insuring the tools for future 
acquisition. But this is not direct food for the soul. The 
young heart is full of love for its parents, of delight at the 
knowledge of new things, and these affections may be guided 
into adoration of Supreme Intelligence ; this love of knowl- 
edge turned to its source, as easily and naturally as the 
stream flows from the mountain to the sea. 

Side by side with this higher cultivation I would teach the 
eye, the hand, and the ear to practise, and to work readily. 
The pencil should ever be in the hand, the picture before 
the eye, — especially when the objects of Nature cannot be, 
and sweet sounds in the ear. The love of activity is suffi- 
cient aid without the debasing influence of emulation. Facts 



112 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

are divine teaching, and a clear perception of them the basis 
of all theories ; therefore they should be clearly and sharply 
presented and discriminated. When children are led to see 
their own ignorance, let them understand that we, who ap- 
pear to them the concentration of all wisdom, (" Pallas-Mi- 
nervas," as one of my little readers of Homer called me one 
day), are also ignorant in presence of the universe, which is 
full of things to be known, and they will not be discouraged, 
but only more eager to learn what they can of these worlds 
of knowledge; and will think of those still to be conquered 
rather than of any little acquirements of their own, thus 
escaping the dangers both of despondency and vanity. Let 
children lead this happy life till they are eight or nine, 
and let it be so full and blessed by love, sympathy, and the 
play of the creative imagination, that it will lift them over 
the rough places for many more years, while they shall build 
stone walls and towers of facts, as starting-places for future 
flights. It is the observation of every experienced heart that 
the most hardened sinner may be more easily redeemed, if 
he can be reminded of an infancy of purity and golden sun- 
shine. If true, it is an argument for prolonging that infancy 
as far as possible, that the recollection of it, if unfortunately 
dimmed, may the more surely revive in those deep moments 
of existence, when the soul is thrown back upon itself for 
support and consolation ; whether they be moments of guilt 
or of sorrow, of disappointed ambition or disappointed hope, 
of wounded pride, or wounded faith. 

I am aware that the public schools are the hope of our 
land and its glory, and schools are the best world for chil- 
dren to grow up in when properly regulated ; but I wish 
they need not be so large, so that there need be but one sov- 
ereign in each. Still more desirable is it, however, that 
none but living souls should ever have the privilege of un- 
locking the treasures of knowledge and thought for children. 
It is not enough to have deep and varied acquirements, 
but there must be a native delight in communicating, and a 



MOKAL CULTUKE OF INFANCY. 113 

sympathy — a living sympathy — with every human being. 
These alone will awaken the love of excellence and call forth 
the powers of the mind. No one should ever have the care 
of children who does not love them because they are chil- 
dren, or who can ever feel the undertaking an irksome task. 
I always regret to see the occupation entered upon as a last 
resort for a livelihood, or by those whose spirits can no longer 
respond to the touch of childhood. It must be a strong 
spirit that, in such instances, can rise again to meet the 
bounding hopes of fresh being. It is like going back to 
principles, when our experience fails to answer our just de- 
mands for highest happiness. In the faith of childhood, 
which knows no doubt, we can see that one experience is 
not the test of what our birthright is ; and while we do not 
neglect the warnings we have had, we must never think that 
our single experience has exhausted the source whence truth 
flows. 

I believe, too, that the germ of everything is in the human 
soul ; and this faith seems to me essential to a teacher. Edu- 
cation is not the creation, but only the bringing forth of these 
germs, and that alone is a true education which brings them 
forth in fair proportions. To make children learn something 
tangible, if I may so speak, and to keep them quiet, are the 
usual aims of a teacher, and success in these is the usual 
test of his value ; but they seem to me not to be his highest 
merit. I have often waited long, and I have learned to wait 
patiently, for anything like results. There is a certain har- 
monious play of the faculties, to the production of which I 
direct my efforts, and which I watch for with intense interest 
in my children, (for they seem to me mine,) and this can 
never be cultivated if one is bound by any formulas. I con- 
sider myself fortunate that my own mind has always enjoyed 
its birthright of freedom ; that no iron habits have bound me 
to any mechanical system. My advantage is a negative one, 
perhaps, for I never had much training of an intellectual 
kind, my physical education being the chief object in my 



114 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

childhood. I was at least saved from such formality as en- 
abled the teacher of a distinguished school to say in my pres- 
ence, that " the less boys understood or were interested in 
their lessons, the better the discipline of stutlj'." This was 
surely making the process as mechanical a one as the motions 
of a trip-hammer. But there you have an immense advan- 
tage over me. You have been well trained, and yet meas- 
ured by no Procrustean bed, for your most living teacher 
never wore any fetters herself, and could not impose any. 
Am I not right ? Your summer retreat has been " twice 
blessed" in having such advantages of highest education, 
added to the influences of Nature, which you so dearly love. 
You are bound to open your eyes as beamingly~as she does, 
upon all who come under their glance, to show your gratitude 
for such teachings. I well remember your frequent descrip- 
tions of those " large orbs " that presided over the most inter- 
esting part of your youthful training. I have seen those 
eloquent eyes myself, and can conceive their power when 
animated with the inspiring pleasure of pouring the treas- 
ures of thought into a receiving soil. And you are not the 
only one whom I have heard discourse of this source of in- 
spiration. Your best study, too, was in the season when the 
reins are generally relaxed. The time when I received most 
benefit from study, solitary and unaided, and even stolen as 
it was, (for the family decree was that, I being an invalid, 
must not study,) was when I pursued my lessons in an or- 
chard, and generally in a tree, or sitting in the baby's breakfast- 
chair, in the midst of a shallow, rushing river, under a sweep- 
ing willow. I was brought up so much out of doors, that 
walls were oppressive to me. Indeed, I look back upon it 
as the only time of my childhood when any variety of influ- 
ences acted upon me at once ; and one which I ought not to 
omit to mention, was a much admired friend, who knew how 
to point out to me, leaf and flower in hand, what riches of 
knowledge were stored up in Nature for her children. I do 
not know but what my love of these hidden treasures was 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 115 

stimulated by the fear of being deprived of them. Owing to 
this fear I probably arrived earlier in life at that point which 
I have always contended was the great point in education, — 
the time when one takes it into one's own hands. But I do 
not think that your " two outward advantages " of mother- 
hood and education, constitute all your qualifications for the • 
task you have undertaken. I know what soil was warmed 
into fruitfulness by the rays shed from the sun of genius. 
Now, you are bound to fulfil my hopes, and if my own path 
is not smoothed by your help, I shall call you to account for 
my disappointment. I will give you my small experience, 
and tell you how I found out methods, because they were not 
practised upon me ; and I bid forth your power of deducing 
theories and improvements that will cheer us both onward. 
For want of more interested auditors, I often pour out my 
plans for educing order out of the little chaoses committed 
to my care, to ears that stretch to their utmost for politeness* 
sake, and for my sake, perhaps ; but not for the thing I wish 
to impart. 

LETTER II. 

My dear Anna, — I will begin by telling you that I can 
do the thing better than I can describe it. You must let me 
tell you stories out of my school-room to illustrate the wis- 
dom of my proceedings. I can hardly tell you my enjoyment 
of the fresh affections of children, of their love of knowl- 
edge (of new things, as it always is to them), of their ready 
apprehension of principles, of their quick response to truth, 
their activity and buoyancy, their individuality, their prom- 
ise. Sometimes I look forward for them, and tremble at 
what awaits them, when I see tendencies to evil or weakness. 
I know that every ill in their various paths may be made 
stepping-stones to highest good ; but the doubt whether they 
will be made so, the certainty of the long and sharp pains 
of conflict, the dying down of hope, (that happily, I know, 



116 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

can yet rise Phoenix-like from its own ashes,) these, and 
many perils by the way, that my brooding heart points out 
to me, often oppress me, and I could wish them spared. 
When it is remembered how man has marred the work of 
God, how different his part ought to be from what it is, and 
how long it must be before the individuals of the race can 
work themselves free from the crust of evil that has grown 
over the whole, I think I may be pardoned for these heart 
aches : but I know they are not my highest moments. It 
has been deeply said that pain is the secret of Nature. 1 
have that within me which responds to it. I must feel it for 
others as well as for myself, and shall constantly do so when 
my faith is perfected. I am grateful that I exist, for I can 
look upon what we call this life as only the beginning of a 
long career, in which I shall ever look back and rejoice that 
I have been a human being, whatever may be the ills that 
I suffer from just now. The consciousness of the capac- 
ities of expanding intellect and of glorious affections, assure 
me that the destiny of the soul will compensate for the heri- 
tage of woe, which this life is to many of us. Thus I try to 
look beyond the conflicts I see in the future of these little 
beings who now dance joyfully around me. 

You will wonder, perhaps, that one can conceive such a 
personal interest in the children of others ; but it will come 
to you in time. You have truly said, that it needs all the 
tenderness of a mother, and her vital self-forgetting interest 
in the result, to enable her to find the true path of Nature 
from the beginning, and remove all obstacles to free unfold- 
ing. But many a mother sacrifices her elder children, as it 
were, to this discovery. As the germ of the maternal sen- 
timent is in all women, relations may be established be- 
tween teacher and child that may take the place of the nat- 
ural one, so far as to answer all the purposes required. Such 
a relation is the only foundation upon which a true education 
can go on. It leaves no room for a division of interests be- 
tween child and teacher, which division alone has the power 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 117 

forever to destroy all the best benefits of the communication 
of mind, and is generally, indeed, an effectual barrier against 
any communication at all. Such a relation as I would have 
does away with every feeling of reserve that might check 
the full and free expression of thought and feeling. A 
young child should turn to its teacher, as well as to its 
mother, with the undoubting confidence that there is a wealth 
of love equal to all occasions. When my little scholars call 
me "mother," which they often do from inadvertence, I 
feel most that I am in the true relation to them. I have 
in some instances been preferred before the mother, because 
I was the fountain of knowledge and even of tenderness to 
starved and neglected little souls. A very sensitive child of 
seven years old, who always said " can't," when any task, 
even the simplest, was set before her, but who was, never- 
theless, so morbidly conscientious that she was miserable not 
to be able to accomplish anything that she thought her duty, 
took an opportunity one day, when she was alone with me, 
to make me the confidant of her domestic sorrows, asking 
me to promise I would not tell " mother." This was rather 
dangerous ground ; but I knew something of the domestic 
life of the family, and that the tender mother of it was often 
exasperated almost to madness by the cruel tyranny and ex- 
actions of the father, and I promised. Then, with burning 
cheeks and trembling voice she told me that they did not 
love her at home ; that her father despised her ; that her 
mother urged her beyond her strength to meet his require- 
ments ; that her eldest sister treated her with harshness and 
ridicule because she was so " stupid," and that her younger 
sisters did not like to play with her because she was cross. 
I saw at a glance why she always said and felt " can't," and 
I stood awe-struck before the endowment of conscience in 
the child which had stood the test of such trials as these, and 
made duty the central point of her being, for that I had 
already known to be the case. I sympathized with her, as 
you may well imagine. I told her what I knew of the vir- 



118 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

tues of her mother, whom she tenderly loved, and whose 
love for herself she felt, but could not enjoy, because its nat- 
ural expression was lost in the impatient endeavor to hold 
her up to her father's unreasonable requisitions. From that 
hour she was my child, and could work happily in my pres- 
ence. I told her that I knew she always wished to do right, 
and that I should always be satisfied with whatever she 
could accomplish ; that if I required too much of her, she 
only need to say so ; that she must not try to do anything 
more than was pleasant and comfortable, for only thus could 
she preserve her powers of mind, which were good, and 
which would work well if they could work happily. Through 
my influence she passed much time away from her ungenial 
home, with friends in whose society she could be happy and 
unrestrained, and the burden was lightened so far that she 
was in the end able to justify herself, and take a happier 
place in the family circle ; but she was irretrievably injured 
both mentally and morally, learning to become indifferent 
where she could not assert herself, and the battle of life will, 
I fear, ever be a hard one to her. 

In such cases one feels the true spirit of adoption, and this 
should be the standard for the general relation. I do not 
feel satisfied till the most timid and reserved are confiding to 
me, smile when they meet my eye, and come to me in the 
hour of trouble ; nor till the most perverse and reckless take 
my reproofs in sorrow and not in anger, and return to me 
for sympathy when they are good. 

Nor am I willing to have anything to do with the educa- 
tion of a child whose parents I am unable to convince of my 
vital interest in its welfare, and into whose heart I cannot 
find an entering place, while at the same time I speak can- 
didly of faults ; for there is a sort of magnetism in the coop- 
eration of mother and teacher ; and its subtle influence, or 
the reverse, is distilled into every detail of the relation. 
Sometimes I find parents who do not know enough of their 
children to interfere at all, and then I am willing to do 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 119 

what I can to supply the deficiency. The school should only 
be the larger family for them, and the lessons learned should 
be the least good they receive from the daily routine. Still 
worse off are those who are educated at home by servants 
who rule in nurseries, and so long as they keep the children 
quiet are not questioned much as to the means by which they 
do it. Quite aggravated cases of oppression have come 
under my observation, which I have discovered by noticing 
the sway held over children by these hirelings, who bring 
them to and from school. I think I should never risk this 
evil in a family of my own. 

To seize every opportunity to unfold thought in a natural 
way, to consider duty, to awaken and keep alive conscience, 
and cultivate a mutual confidence and forbearance between 
the young, should be the aim in such a little world as a 
school. The flow of happy spirits should be unchecked, and 
no deep memory of faults should remain with a child, unless 
they are of the deepest dye, such as falsehood and selfish- 
ness. A serious invasion of each other's rights should be 
made a prominent subject of blame, but the only retribution 
of which a child should be made to have a permanent con- 
sciousness, is that of the injury, or the danger of injury to 
itself, and I firmly believe if this can be made apparent to a 
child, it may be the strongest possible motive to keep it in 
the path of rectitude. It seems to me indeed the only legiti- 
mate motive to present to a human soul. I do not mean a 
selfish regard to the welfare even of one's own soul, but that 
regard which includes the welfare of others as well as of one's 
own. I do not like to say to a child, " do not so because 
if you do I cannot love you," for that is an outside motive, 
but rather " because you cannot grow any better if you do 
so and then you cannot respect yourself or be worthy of any 
one's love. " Do not grieve dear mother by doing wrong, 
for then she cannot be happy." " Are you not afraid if 
you do so, that by and by you can do something more 
naughty ? " " Is there not something in you, that makes 



120 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

you feel very uncomfortable when you have done wrong ? 
That is the way God has made us, so that we may grow 
better and not worse." I have arrested very naughty doings 
by such remarks, where defiance of human authority was 
very strong and determined. I have awakened a similar 
fear in many a child by relating what a dread I had in my 
own childhood of growing worse. Nothing is easier than to 
make a child false by frightening it or blaming it too much ; 
but nothing will make a child so ingenuous as to convince it 
that you are interested in its progress, and would like to 
help it cure its own faults. But we must often wait long 
before a child is capable of taking this view so fully as to be 
influenced by it, in opposition to the dictates of passion and 
the weakness or immaturity of intellect ; experience teaches 
us that the volatile, the obstinate, the self-indulgent, the 
crafty, and even the indolent must be influenced by the 
apprehension of a nearer penalty or the power of a more 
direct authority than that can always be understood to be. 
Self-control is often the first virtue to be cultivated, and a 
fear of present evil must sometimes be the instrument of its 
cultivation. A distinguished and most successful superin- 
tendent of an insane hospital once assured me, that in the 
majority of cases, self-control was all that was needed as a 
remedy for insanity. I asked him if he had ever known of 
insane children? He said he had known many; and that 
it usually appeared in the form of unmanageableness. If we 
concede that all evil in our race is partial insanity (and if 
we believe in the soul, we must finally think that the crust 
of organization into which it is built for a time is the only 
obstacle to its right action, and to put one parenthesis within 
another, which I know is not canonical, does not this point to 
the duty of providing against evil organizations ?), why 
should we not treat all evil as insanity should be treated, 
and believe that if the power of self-government is cultivated, 
the soul will take care of itself ? In this connection I always 
take health into consideration ; for one wise mother of my 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 121 

acquaintance suggested a new idea to me by once telling me 
that for certain faults in her children she always gave medi- 
cine, being convinced that the difficulty lay in the stomach. 

I am always very careful to disarm all fear before I use 
any authority. I find much timidity in children, as if they 
had been harshly dealt with. I have seen fearful looks of 
terror in little faces when I have approached them to enforce 
a request, and in such cases I either take them gently in my 
arms or draw them close to me with a caressing motion, 
which is sometimes all the punishment they need, if you will 
allow me such an Irishism. They are at the same time con- 
vinced of my earnestness, and disarmed of all opposition, 
and when I approach another time, if occasion requires, 
I can lead them to another seat or even out of the room, 
and enjoin obedience without exciting either fear or opposi- 
tion. I never threaten any penalties, but execute my own 
requisitions decidedly at the moment, " because this is the 
right thing to be done." I think it is not well to threaten 
for next time ; and where punishments are mild, such as 
changing a child's seat, or putting it into a room alone, or 
going to its mother and talking the matter over in presence 
of the child, a repetition of the offence may be avoided. I 
have one child in my school who would crouch down upon 
the floor, if opposed, or required to do any thing she did not 
wish to, and go into a sort of hysteric, protesting that she 
was dying. I laughed at her a little at first, but I soon saw 
she was very obstinate and very passionate, and several 
times on such occasions I took her up in my arms, though 
she was pretty heavy, and carried her to a bed, where I 
laid her down and left her to enjoy her performance alone. 
After a while she would sneak down into the school-room 
again looking very much ashamed, but I took no notice of 
this, and after two or three experiments she was entirely 
cured. I learned afterward that she had practised this 
device successfully upon a doting mother and her nursery- 
maid, who really feared she would die. They were much 
6 



122 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

obliged to me for having the courage to meet it resolutely. 
She has become a charming little scholar, for she is as full of 
talent and affection as of self-will, and has been sent, by my 
urgent entreaty, to learn calisthenic exercises, where she 
expends the extra fluid which, when bottled up by inaction, 
works mischief in her. She was formerly unable to tie her 
own bonnet or draw on her own gloves, but in six months 
she has so changed that she can dress other children as well 
as herself, and climbs the banisters and perches herself fear- 
lessly upon the tops of the doors, greatly to the terror of 
other little children of luxury like herself. 

We should never prevaricate or in any way deceive a 
child for the sake of an immediate result, for that is not 
being true to principle, but we may be allowed sometimes, 
in our characters of mothers and teachers, to act as that 
" near Providence," which the mother has so happily been 
said to be. In God's government, some penalty, though 
often a hidden one, is the consequence of every transgres- 
sion of law ; and do we not in a small measure act to the 
child as his representatives ? It is a dangerous power to 
have dominion over another soul, even for a time ; but since 
it is actually given to us, are we not bound to make use of 
it, conscientiously and tenderly, but still to make use of it ? 
I once knew a father who thought, because he was not him- 
self perfect, that he had no right to exact obedience from 
his children. His retribution for this morbid conscientious- 
ness was most deplorable. One child became insane from 
want of self-control, which he would not allow her to be 
taught ; and another failed to have any sentiment of duty 
toward God or man, but passed many years of life without 
apparently knowing that any duty was required of him. 
Worldly prosperity in his case only increased the evil, for 
he was never obliged to make an exertion for himself or 
others. I have never heard that he was vicious, but he 
could not live even with the parent who had allowed him 
to grow up unrestrained. The parents surely are designed 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 123 

to represent to the child the Heavenly Father whom they 
cannot see, and who must later become an object of faith 
through that beautiful analogy; of parental love and care. 

I agree too with one of the best and wisest, who has said 
that it is not necessary to reward children for doing right, 
since God has so made man that doing right is, like loving, 
its own reward. Only those who have thought deeply can 
make such discriminations as these, yet to what noble mind, 
when the thing is once said, does it not seem base to give 
an outward reward for a lofty action ? And is it not a broth- 
erly act to help our fellow-pilgrims on their way, by giving 
a friendly warning when a stumbling-block is in the path ? 
I think children can be made to understand that a judicious 
punishment is a friendly warning, if not the first time we 
administer it, then the second, or the third, or even the 
fiftieth time ; for as we should forgive, so we should warn 
our brother, " not seven times, but seventy times seven." 
I learn to feel that if I am actuated by the right motive in 
my dealings with their souls, (and one learns to be very 
conscientious in meddling with them,) my pupils will find it 
out sooner or later ; and then they will see all that I have 
done, as well as all that I may do, in a new light. 

I have a bright little fellow in my school who had ac- 
quired a sad habit of sucking his thumb. I thought he 
actually began to grow thin upon it. I had checked him 
many times, and he was good about it, but the habit was 
too strong for him. One day I drew on a little conversa- 
tion about helping each other out of difficulties, which all 
agreed to ; and all professed themselves willing to be helped 
and to listen to warnings. I then said there was one in the 
school whom I wished to cure of a bad habit, and I had a plan 
for doing it, but its success must depend upon whether he was 
willing, and upon whether the rest would be really friendly 
and not laugh at him, or tease him, but help him in every 
way they could. They were very desirous to know who and 
what it was, and very sure they would do all that was de- 



124 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

sired. I then spoke to little W , who was only six, or 

at most, seven years old, and asked him if he was willing to 
let me tie that hand behind him that he might be cured of 
sucking his thumb ; for I knew of no other way. I told him 
it would try his patience ; for it was his right hand, and he 
would have to be dependent upon others for many things, 
and often would find it very inconvenient and annoying. 
After I had impressed him fully with the importance of the 
matter, he consented, and the rest of the children promised 
to be attentive to his wants. I never tied the hand behind 
him till he put the thumb into his mouth ; but it had to be 
done every day for a fortnight. He bore it, and all the 
inconveniences, like a hero, and not one child forgot to be 
considerate and helpful. He was cured of the trick, and he 
has been an object of great interest among his companions 
ever since, because they helped to do him good. 

Perhaps, dear A , you will think I dwell longer than 

necessary upon this subject, knowing as we do that the usual 
fault of schools is too much penalty, and too much low 
motive ; but you and I are surrounded uy those who are 
inclined, by their tendency of thought, to forget practical 
wisdom ; who, in their lively sense that immortality begins 
now, and is not a distant good, — a sort of reward for well- 
doing, are in danger of forgetting that we are to be educated 
by circumstances, and that circumstances will educate us, 
whether we direct them or not, in this beginning of our 
long career. Those who have most faith in the soul and 
its ultimate power to work itself free from all impediments, 
are most apt to despise all the minor aids that may help its 
first steps. 

Then there is another class of persons, who do not believe 
in the soul enough to think education of any use. They 
cannot very well tell you what they do believe ; in truth 
they have no faith in anything, but finding it hard to control 
circum -tances, and seeing instances of great failure where 
there have been most appliances, (they do not consider 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 125 

whether these applianees were wisely administered,) they 
give all up to chance, and believing neither in innate 
ideas nor in the use of means, rest satisfied with a low 
standard of action, and go through life without ever having 
a glimpse of anything better than themselves. Indeed, if 
they see anything better, they understand it so little, that 
they think it must be a delusive appearance, and that an 
earnest view of any subject is extravagance, or even in- 
sanity. But I do not think so great a want of faith is very 
common. 

This is too long a letter, so good-by for the present. "When 
I think you are rested from this, I will write again. 

M. 

LETTER III. 

My dear Anna, — Let me introduce you to my little 
family. It consists of twenty children, some of whom have 
been under my care for three years. These latter are eight 
in number, and from nine to twelve years of age ; then I 
have six who are not seven years old, who know how to read 
pretty well, but who study no lessons more difficult than a 
simple bit of poetry, the names of a few places on the map, 
a list of words from the black-board of the parts of a flower, 
or an interlined Latin fable, which I give them thus early, 
because Latin is one of the elements of our language, and its 
forms are so definite that it gives definiteness to ideas. These 
children print, write, draw from outlined forms and blocks, 
as well as from their own fancies, and listen to all sorts of 
information which I give them orally, and which they recount 
to me again when questioned. I tell a great many stories 
over maps, which are, in my dominions, not only lines 
running hither and thither with a few names interspersed, 
but real mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, which I clothe 
with verdure, and people with all kinds of animate forms, 
such as beasts, birds, fishes, and William Tells, or other in- 



126 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

teresting individuals and tribes. I have a book, called 
" Wonders of the World," which is my Aladdin's lamp, and 
when I take it down, little hands are clapped and bright eyes 
glisten. 

But I must not forget to mention my other six, who are 
sweet little buds of promise as one can well imagine ; who 
love to hear stories about all living things, from oysters up 
through the more intelligent shell-fish that have heads as 
well as a foot, to small pink pigs and their mothers, butter- 
flies, birds, dogs, horses, cows, and fellow-children ; and to 
learn that their stockings are made of wool that grew on the 
back of a lamb, their shoes of the skin of a calf, their rib- 
bons from the cocoons of a moth, the table of a tree, &c, &c. 
These little people were committed to my keeping directly 
out of their mothers' or their nurses' arms. I am always 
diffident about taking the place of the former, but rejoice to 
rescue babes from the care of the latter. 

The first thing to be taught these, is how to live happily 
with each other ; the next, how to use language. It is not 
necessary to wait till they can read before we begin this last 
instruction. # They love dearly to repeat the words of simple 
poetry or of poetic prose, (Mrs. Barbauld is my classic for 
babes,) and it is curious to see how synthetical are their first 
mental operations, and how difficult they find it to disentangle 
the words of a short sentence, which evidently has hitherto 
been but one word of many syllables. Names of things can 
be made to stand forth distinctly before other words, because 
the objects of the senses do ; but when I first ask children of 
three or four years old to make sentences and put in the and 
and, their pleasure in recognizing the single word is even 
greater, and they will amuse themselves a great deal with 
the exercise, running to me to whisper, "just now I said 
the ; " or, " Charley said and." If the printed w T ord is 
pointed out at the same time, it is still more interesting, 
because then it becomes an object of the senses, a real thing, 
just as much as the book it is printed in. You know I take 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 127 

the royal road to the attainment of this art, and teach words 
first, not letters. I find this a much better as well as happier 
way, for a word is a whole host of thoughts to a young child, 
and three words in a row a whole gallery of pictures. Bird, 
nest, tree ! If a child has ever played in a meadow, or even 
in a garden, or sat on a grassy bank under the window, or 
has seen pigeons fly down into a city street, what subject of 
endless conversation does this combination of things present ! 
The book that contains such words, and perhaps a story, of 
which they form a part, is itself an illuminated volume, and 
is immediately invested with a charm it cannot lose, for what 
child (or man) was ever tired of the thought of a bird, or a 
tree, to say nothing of that more rare and mysterious object, 
a nest ? The warbled song, the downy breast, the sheltering 
wing, the snug retreat, have such an analogy with the moth- 
er's carol or lullaby, the brooding bosom, and the beloved 
arms, a child's dearest home, that every sentiment is enlisted, 
and a thousand things, never to be forgotten, may be said. 
There is no need of pictures on such a page as this. I well 
remember the shining pages of my childhood's books, — a lustre 
never emitted by white paper alone. I doubt not the ancient 
fancy of illuminating the works of great minds with gilded 
and scarlet letters grew out of some such early association 
with printed, or rather written thoughts ; — for printing was 
not known then. 

I believe you do not approve of this method of teaching to 
read ; but I cannot help thinking a variety of experience like 
mine would make you a convert to my mode. I claim to 
have discovered it, and the bright little six years old rogue, 
upon whom I tried my first experiment, learned to read in 
six weeks, and every word was an experience to him, for I 
made up the lessons as we went on from day to day right 
out of his little life. He would scream with delight to see 
what he called his words on the sheet upon which I daily 
printed a new lesson. I have no doubt every name of a 
thing looked to him like the thing itself, for his imagination 



128 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

was a very transmuting one. You would have been as 
amused at his antics over the word " and " as I was. I 
only introduced such oysters of words occasionally into my 
gallery of pictures, but he never forgot any such useful mem- 
bers of society, though I think he could not have made pic- 
tures of them. One great point is, that children are always 
happy to read in this way ; and to work their little brains 
against their will, seems to me cruel. It is quite an effort 
for them to learn to observe closely enough to distinguish 
such small particulars even as words, with which they have 
such vivid associations, and altogether an unnatural one to 
learn arbitrary signs, to which nothing already known can 
be attached. Until I was convinced that this was the best 
method, I always found myself instinctively helping innocent 
children along, through their first steps in reading, by means 
which, at the time, I half thought were tricks, and unsafe in- 
dulgences. I feared that I was depriving them of some de- 
sirable and wholesome discipline, such as we often hear of 
in our extreme youth from nursery-maids, who tell stories 
of parents who whip their children every morning that they 
may be good all day. But I will never again force helpless 
little ones, of three or four years old, to learn the alphabet 
and the abs, until every letter is interesting to them from the 
position it holds in some symbolic word. 

When letters are learned in the ordinary way, they are 
often associated with some image, as a stands for apple, b for 
boy, c for cat ; and these associations may be so many hin- 
drances (certainly in the case of the vowels) to the next 
step in the process, because they must all be unlearned be- 
fore the letters can be applied to other words. In our lan- 
guage there are so many silent letters in words, so many 
sounds for each vowel, and the alphabetic sound of the ■con- 
sonants is so different from their sound in words, that I do 
not care how late the analysis 'is put off. 

After a while, I string columns of little words together, in 
which the vowel has the same sound, as can, man, pan, tan, 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 129 

and let these be the first spelling-lessons ; but I prefer, even 
to this mode, that of letting children write from dictation the 
words they are familiar with on a page. One dear little boy- 
came to school three months before he wished to read, or to 
look at a book, except for the pictures. At last he came into 
the class without an invitation, and has learned very fast, 
and can read better than some children who have read 
longer. He is a perfect little dumpling, as gay and happy 
as a lark all day, and I would not for the world make it a 
task for him to use his brain, thus risking the diminution of 
his rotundity. He is as wise'as a judge, though he has not 
lost his baby looks ; and he might be made to reason subtly 
at an early age I doubt not ; but I hope all such powers 
will be allowed to slumber peacefully as yet. He is in the 
mean time learning to read slowly ; to print, to draw houses, 
to repeat poetry, to sing songs about birds, bees, and lambs, 
and to have as much fun between these exercises as I can 
furnish him with, — the latter in another apartment, of 
course. I have taken no pains to teach him his letters. I 
have a great repugnance to letters, with their many different 
sounds, so puzzling to the brain; — but one day, finding he 
knew some of them, I pointed to g, and asked him if he knew 
the name of it. He said " grass," which was the first word 
in which he had seen g. So w he first called " water," for 
the same reason. I gave him their sounds, but not their 
alphabetical names. I was obliged to give him two sounds 
for g, one hard, one soft, and he soon knew all the consonants 
by their powers. I hope he will not ask me anything about 
the vowels at present.* 

* All these difficulties with which I wrestled so many years in my char- 
acter of champion of childhood, are entirely solved and done away with by 
the more recently introduced method, — introduced by authority of a dis- 
tinguished philologist, of teaching the Italian alphabet, and always calling 
c and g hard, as the old Romans are supposed to have done. This mode is 
made practicable in the " First Nursery Reading-Book," and the last edi- 
tion of the " Primer of Reading and Drawing." Abundant experience shows 
that reading taught in this way leaves nothing to be unlearned in English, 
6 * 



130 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

I also cut out the words children first learn, as soon as 
they can put together a few in short sentences, and let them 
arrange them to correspond with the sentences in the book. 
I have devoted one copy of my Primer to this purpose, and 
keep the words thus separated, and pasted upon card-board, 
for such use. 

I know all children learn to read, and some children learn 
rapidly, but I am always interested to know at what cost. It 
is a very important question, I assure you. One may not 
realize, at the time, the evils consequent upon the difficulties 
first encountered. The actual Injury to the brain stands first 
among these. We grown people know the painful sensation 
consequent upon too long and too fixed attention to one sub- 
ject, even in the arranging of piles of pamphlets which we 
are endeavoring to classify. The brain whirls and experi- 
ences chills, and the whole body feels it. So with children, 
when made to read too long, before the eye has learned to 
discriminate words easily. The child is told that it is naughty, 
if it does not continue as long as the teacher's or the mother's 
patience holds out (as soon as that is exhausted, the lesson 
is sure to be over). How false this is ! A little child 
should never be required to do anything intellectual as a 
duty. It should not be required even to love as a duty, 
much less to think. Both should be made inevitable by the 
interest inspired ; its mental efforts should only be sports. 
Its habits of self-control, its kindness, its affection, should be 
cultivated, and this rather by example than by precept. 
When mothers do not succeed in teaching their children to 
read, because they have not the resolution to force them to 
it, they often say to me, " Do teach the child to read, it 
will be a great resource ; " I reply, if I think they will be- 

and teaches an analysis of words into letters which contributes very much 
to the ease of the subsequent study of European languages, to which the 
sounds of the letters of the Italian alphabet apply almost without an excep- 
tion. Experience upon this subject has given me confidence in the general 
rule of never teaching exceptions to anything until the rule is well under- 
stood and mastered. 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 131 

lieve me, that their instincts have perhaps been wiser than 
their understanding ; but if I see that they are unreasonable, 
I reply that I will try, reserving to myself the privilege of 
trying just as much as I please, and no more. I can gener- 
ally make the effort to read a voluntary one, if I do not find 
any previous painful associations to do away. If I do, I 
wait patiently till I can replace them by others, and in the 
mean time make books vocal of such enchanting things that 
the desire will bubble up in the little mind, through all the 
rubbish that has gathered over it. The pleasure of reading 
together from a black-board, on which the letters should be 
printed with great exactness and perfection of form, in order 
to resemble those in the book, often gives this desire. 

One little fellow, whose perceptive powers are sharper 
than those of my dumpling, reflects upon himself more, and 
although equally fat, appears, from a certain anxious expres- 
sion on his face, to have had some trials. He says his sister 
sometimes "hurts his feelings." He thinks some words are 
beautiful and " full of pictures." He tells very small fibs, 
such as " Mother says I must read those words, and those." 
Do not suppose I let this fibbing pass. I make a great point 
of not believing it, and of comparing it with truth, and of 
proving to him that his mother knows nothing about it. 

Another little darling, who cannot speak plain, says, " Oh, 
is 'at feathers ? Why ! is it feathers ? Oh, now tell me 
where wings is ! Oh ! is 'at wings f Oh ! I want to kiss 
oo." 

I hear these little ones read four or five times a day. 
The lesson occupies about fifteen minutes each time. All 
" study " together, as they call it. I put my pointer on the 
book of each in turn, making it a habit that they shall not 
look off the book for the space of three minutes, perhaps, 
during which each reads. They keep within a few sen- 
tences of each other, near enough to think they read together, 
as I detain them long upon the repetition of all they know ; 
but I see very clearly which will start off soon and outstrip 



132 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

the rest. I say nothing of which reads the best, but some- 
times make such remarks as, " L will learn to read very 

fast, I think, he is so attentive." This makes L all the 

more attentive, and helps the others to make the effort ; for 
with these four, to be able to read is the most charming of 
prospects. I am determined that no touch of weariness shall 
break the charm. In three months they will be able to read 
the two first stories in the Primer, which occupy about two 
pages. Their eyes will by that time become so accustomed 
to analyzing the looks of the words, that they will be able 
to print them without the book, and soon new words will be 
learned very rapidly. I stave off the spelling as long as 
possible, but you may be sure that these children will spell 
well by and by. I am convinced of this by experience, 
for the next class above these in age have begun within a 
few weeks to write stories of their own, composing instead 
of copying them from books, as they have done for two 
years, and I am myself quite astonished at their spelling. 
They have never spelled a word they did not understand, 
and their spelling in composition is better than that of some 
children still older who learned to spell elsewhere, and who 
hate spelling-books. 

One of my exercises in thinking is to ask the children to 
tell me the names of all the actions they can think of; and 
to help them I say, for instance, " What can the bird do ? " 
" What can the fly do ? " " How many things can the fly 
do?" Another is to ask them what things are made of, and 
where they are found, " Are they vegetables, or are they 
from animals, or are they minerals ? " They are vastly en- 
tertained by this, and one little fellow became so much ex- 
cited, and wearied himself so much with his investigations at 
home, that his mother begged me to suspend the exercise for 
a time. Jemmy's head is a little too big for his body ; and 
the look of research in his great eyes gives evidence of pre- 
cocity, the thing of all others to be shunned. His mother 
has put thick boots upon him lately, and turned him out 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 133 

into the snow, and he looks like a butterfly in boots, with his 
ethereal head and spiritual orbs. 

I have but one child under my care that I call a prodigy ; 
and my influence has not yet been strong enough to check 
her ardor as it ought to be checked. She is sent to school 
because she is happier at school than in the nursery, to 
which rich people's children are so often banished. (I never 
intend to have a nursery in my house.) This child has been 
with me three years, and is but six now. She might be 
made one of those wonders of learning that occasionally as- 
tonish the world, if the plan of her education had not been 
to supply as little food as possible for her cravings. Fortu- 
nately she did not ask to read for a long time, but I have not 
a scholar so perseveringly industrious, so absorbed in what- 
ever she is doing, so full of nervous energy. She is as con- 
scientious as she is intellectual. I have never had to repeat 
a request to her, or to subject her to a rule. She always 
sees and does the fitting and the lovely thing. Before she 
learned to read she would sit for the hour together with a 
book in hand, (upside down, perhaps,) and improvisate sto- 
ries wonderful to hear, in which the characters preserved 
their individuality, and the descriptions of nature were as 
vivid as those of a poet of many years. She was quite lost 
to outward things while improvisating thus. One day after 
school, the maid who came for her not having arrived, she 
threw herself on the floor, and began a story about a naughty 
child. I cannot now remember all the very words, for it 
was a year ago ; but the qualities of the heroine were a 
combination of all' the faults she knew anything about. If 
people were ill, she always made a noise ; she would shut 
the door hard if told that it would make people's heads ache. 
She hid other people's things, and would not tell where she 
had put them. She was very cross to her little brother, and 
often hurt the baby. She cut valuable things with the scis- 
sors, tore up her books, and left the pieces of paper on the 
parlor carpet. One day it rained very hard, and her mother 



134 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

told her not to go out, lest she should take cold. She was 
always disohedient, so she went up-stairs and put on a very- 
nice dress and her best bonnet, with blue ribbons, and thin 
stockings and shoes, and nothing to keep herself warm, but 
went out in the rain, and paddled and paddled about, and wet 
her dress, and spoilt the blue ribbons on her bonnet ; and 
when she came in she was very, very sick indeed, and had a 
dreadful fever, and people slammed the doors and made a 
great noise, and she had dreadful, oh, dreadful pains in her 
head and her side, and she could not eat or drink anything ; 
and at last she died and did not go to heaven ! " She 
stopped, completely out of breath. After a few moments' 
pause, I said, " Oh, I am sorry for the poor little girl that 
was punished so much. Was she so very naughty she could 
not go to heaven ? " 

She made no reply for some time, and then recommenced 
in a low, solemn voice : " When she was lying in her bed, 
she was very sorry she had not obeyed her mother, and a 
heavenly angel came down out of the heavenly sky and took 
her up into heaven." After a short pause she burst out 
again very energetically — " Then how she ramped ! She 
trampled on the clouds, and put her foot in the sun, moon, 
and stars ! " I made no further comment. I rarely in- 
terrupted her utterances, for they never were addressed to 
any one, and seldom indulged in, unless she thought herself 
alone. They were picturesque and symbolical, but never 
vague. The moral was always very apparent. But her 
imagination sometimes clothes objects with a light of its own. 
I was leading her up-stairs the other day, and as we stepped 
into the hall, we saw a large spider running before us. She 
dropped my hand and bounded forward, " Oh, you beautiful, 
smiling creature ! " was her exclamation. 

Would not a bird have been her passport into paradise at 
that moment ? 

Another of these children was walking in the mall with 
me one day, when the sun was shining with an afternoon 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 135 

light upon the bare trees, over rather a dreary landscape of 
snow and ice. a Oh, the trees look like golden twigs," said 
my little poetess, so full of joy that I could hardly hold her. 

This, dear A , is the 

i 
" time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth and every common sight, 
To us do seem, 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream." 

To return a moment to my little prodigy. When she 
did not for a long time ask to read, she wished to print, and 
it must have been this practice which gradually so accus- 
tomed her eye to the shapes of words, that when she sud- 
denly conceived the desire to read, she remembered them 
with marvellous rapidity. Everything else was abandoned 
for the time, and in the course of two or three weeks she 
could read very well. I had often seen her take up the 
books which contained the stories she liked, and I supposed, 
at first, that she must have learned to read them herself in 
some unaccountable way. She had often repeated such 
stories from the book from beginning to end, word for word. 
But I found it was not the case, — that she had never actu- 
ally read them before. However, I never could trace the 
steps. Spelling she does not find easy. Even now, several 
months after she has been able to read currently, if, when 
she comes to a new word, I propose to her to spell it, she 
will mention the letters (I never taught her their names, but 
she doubtless learned them while printing so industriously), 
and then say again, " What is it ? " as if that had not helped 
her at all. But she never forgets a word after it is once 
told her. She joins in an exercise I frequently practise with 
older scholars, of spelling a few lines of the reading lesson, 
but she is not so ready as the others, although none read 
better, and few as well. She now composes stories on the 
slate instead of improvisating aloud so much ; and I am sur- 
prised to find how many words she spells aright. But I try 
no experiments upon her, as my plan is to clip her wings. 



136 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

If she was enshrined in as rotund a body as some of the 
other children, I might venture a little, but she already looks 
too ethereal ; — one sees at a glance that the sword of her 
fervent little spirit might easily be made to cut its sheath. 

Children love to use their fingers, and I give them a slate 
when they come to school, and teach them to print, which 
accelerates the learning to read. I encourage them also to 
draw from beautiful outlines, from things they see in the 
room, and also from their own fancies. I draw upon the 
black-board before them, very slowly, giving directions for 
imitation. I never criticise their productions, whether suc- 
cessful or not. I often see a promise in the freedom of a 
stroke, or in the child's appreciation of his own drawing, 
which an unpractised eye could scarcely detect. If a little 
child brings me a slate with three marks drawn upon it 
which he calls a horse, or a dog, can I be so unsympathizing 
as to question it ? Perhaps I add ears, legs or a tail, and 
my little disciple does not know the next moment whether 
he or I completed the picture, but the next specimen of his 
art will probably have at least one of these appendages. 

I drew on the black-board to-day, a square house, with a 
door in the middle of the front, a window on each side the 
door, and one in each chamber over the parlors. Two chim- 
neys surmounted the house, and the windows were divided 
each into six panes of glass. These things I mentioned as I 
drew them. It was not many minutes before I was called to 
look at two houses of four times the size of mine, with the 
additional embellishments of stairs to go up into the cham- 
bers, one of the windows open (which I thought decidedly 
the stroke of genius in this artist), smoke from the chimneys, 
steps to the doors (my house had been left hanging in mid- 
air), pumps with individuals, I cannot call them men, sus- 
pended to their handles, and various other hieroglyphics 
which I could not stay to hear explained. These limners 
are four years old, their faith in themselves and others yet 
unshaken, and I should be the last one to suggest that stairs 
could not be seen through the walls of a house, or that men 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 137 

were not lines and dots, or birds as large as houses, for I 
have known children to cry at such criticisms, and to be 
quite checked in their artistic exploits by a laugh. 

After such rude practice as this, the child, by impercep- 
tible advances, begins at last to see things more as they are, 
and then a little criticism is safe, but it must still be guarded, 
sympathizing, and helpful. The next thing to be inculcated 
after this is that objects must not be drawn just as they are, 
but only as they appear. I made this remark to a child of 
seven to-day for the first time. He had learned too much to 
make similar mistakes to those of the little people lately men- 
tioned, but in attempting to copy the drawing of a stool, he 
could not comprehend how the rungs that joined the legs of 
the stool could be drawn so as to look right, because one of 
them could not really be made to pass behind the leg. I 
pointed to a chair and told him to suppose he was drawing it 
upon the wall near which it stood, for his paper represented 
that wall, though for convenience sake it was* laid flat upon 
the table. I asked him if he could see the whole of the legs 
farthest from him, and if the rungs of those legs did not pass 
behind the front legs. He saw it clearly. Then I told him 
we must draw things as they appeared, not as they really 
were. Nothing must be drawn which cannot be seen, al- 
though we know more is there than we can see without going 
behind it. He was delighted with this discovery. Now he 
understood about the rungs of the stool, and also why two 
legs appeared longer than the other two. The stool was fin- 
ished intelligently, though not with elegance, and the paper 
was sprinkled with attempts at various chairs which he could 
see from his seat, some of which really looked as if one could 
sit down in them, and not as if they were flattened out and 
hanging against the wall. Some of the legs would have gone 
through the floor, to be sure, if they had been real chairs, in 
order to afford a comfortable and even seat, but I saw that 
the idea was seized, which was quite enough for my unexact- 
ing demands. A child much younger and less practised } drew 



138 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

the same stool right, without a word from me, and probably 
would be completely puzzled were I to give her the same 
explanation, for art speaks to her without articulate voice. 
I have one little girl with eyes which she seems scarcely yet 
to have used. I took a great deal of pains to teach her to 
draw a little upon the black-board last winter, but if I drew 
a perpendicular, she thought she imitated me by drawing a 
horizontal line. I endeavored to wake up the love and per- 
ception of form by hanging upon the board various exqui- 
sitely shaped vases and leaves, but neither these nor rectan- 
gular forms aroused her imitative powers. I never ceased to 
make these trials, for I remembered that a genius in that 
line once said to me, " the art of seeing must precede the art 
of drawing." During the long vacation she resided in the 
country, and nature must have opened her eyes, for since 
she came back to school (about two months ago), she has 
actually been able to imitate quite intelligibly some of those 
very forms, and prefers some of them to others. I assure 
you I enjoy her imperfect performances far more than I do 
the successful efforts of many others. A German friend gave 
me a book the other day which promises to pour a flood of 
light upon what I now look upon as my benighted efforts to 
simplify to children the art of drawing. It is the method of 
a man of genius, discovered after much groping. He, too, 
had wooden models made, and stood by them, and pointed 
out to his pupils which part to draw first, as I have done, but 
at last he has reduced the whole thing to a few lessons upon 
some rectilinear blocks, a niche, a cylinder, a grindstone, and 
a ball. I am revelling in the perfect adaptation I see in it 
to the end proposed, which is practical teaching of perspec- 
tive without a word being said about vanishing points, aerial 
perspective, or any of those technicalities which weary my 
unmathematical brain, and which I have faithfully adminis- 
tered to myself from time to time.* 

* The work referred to, by Peter Schmid, of Berlin, was subsequently 
translated, and published in the 6th vol. of the Common- School Journal, 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 139 

To vary the occupations of my cherubs, I let them write 
Foster's prepared copies with a pencil, which helps very much 
to regulate the motions of the hand, as there is a great inter- 
est felt in tracing each mark upon the blue line. They also 
look at pictures in books and on the wall, where I hang all 
the pretty things I can find, and tell me what is in them ; 
and sometimes amuse themselves at a table of shells, where 
I hear them recounting in low voices the histories I have 
given them of these little tenants of the seas. When I kept 
caterpillars, or rather raised butterflies, they never were 
tired of watching the chrysalides, hoping to see the expected 
butterflies. After these came forth in their glory, we were 
all poisoned by handling the cocoons, and since that experi- 
ence of itching hands, and arms, and swollen eyes, *I have 
been afraid to venture upon that branch of natural history. 
Shells are the most convenient natural objects for children 
to handle. We talk over flowers often, and I teach the names 
of their different parts, and encourage the children to make 
collections of leaves, and learn the names of their shapes, 
j>reparatory to learning the art of analyzing them thoroughly. 
For this purpose I have drawn all the shapes I can find 
named in botanies, into a book, from which I teach them. 
Flowers are better for teaching beauty than botany, to little 
children, as they object particularly to tearing them to pieces. 

I have not said one word about my little Robin, who stands 
most of the time at the window watching the horses in the 
stable opposite, the scene being often spiritualized by the 
descent of a flight of pigeons, which he generally apprises us 
of by a shout. Occasionally he turns round and sits down, 
and watches inside proceedings, and when an interesting story 
about living things is in progress, I sometimes find him 
in my lap, or behind me in the chair I am sitting in. His 

and afterwards in a pamphlet called the Common- School Drawing Master. 
It is largely used in the public schools of Germany, and formed a new 
era in Germany, in the teaching of Perspective Drawing, as truly as 
Colburn's First Lessons formed a new era in the teaching of Mental Arith- 
metic here. 



140 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

eyes are blue, and his long golden straight hair hangs down 
from his tall forehead like a cleft banner of light. Robin 
will not look inside of a book yet. He is like a caged bird 
in the city where he is imprisoned in winter. In summer 
he lives out of doors, and rides on horseback on his father's 
knee, and holds the reins in driving. His mother says horses 
are the predominating idea, and also sentiment of his life, at 
present, and this stable-peep into their city life is duly re- 
counted every day at home. I often mourn over my lost 
residence by the Common, where the children who looked 
out of window could see trees and a lovely landscape, but 
you must not think I allow my scholars to be pent up five 
hours in the house. Twice a day, I array them all, summer 
and winter, and take them to our city paradise, which hap- 
pily is very near. There we actually see a squirrel once in 
a while. One day we saw a butterfly emerging from its 
chrysalis, and always the sparkling water and waving trees. 
And we have clear space and fresh air for half an hour. 
If you will not tell, I will confess that I have sometimes 
coasted down the least public side of Fox-hill with a babe 
in my lap, and I find I have not forgotten how to slide, — - an 
accomplishment in which I excelled in my youth. In wet 
weather, I put on some of the out-door garments, open a 
window, and have a merry dance or play. The material for 
the early cultivation I would give is all nature, and art taken 
picturesquely. The nomenclatures of science are not for chil- 
dren, but its beauties and wonders are, and may be culled for 
them by a skilful hand till they have had a peep at the wide 
range of the universe. . I believe you think it best not to 
open these store-houses until the mind is capable of compre- 
hending them more fully, but I cannot think so, dear Anna. 
Children's love of nature forbids me to think so. I once 
opened a little soul's eyes with a bunch of flowers. It was 
a child who had never been to school before, but who had 
not been cultivated at home, because her mother had suffered 
from being over- educated, and wished to try the experiment 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 141 

of nature, as she called it, — by which she meant, I perceived, 
total neglect. She had allowed her, therefore, to grow up in 
the nursery and in the care of servants, both of which I con- 
sider as far from nature's teachings as possible. 

The child was afraid of me and of the children. She looked 
at us for about three weeks with a fixed gaze as if we were 
not living beings, but perhaps walking pictures, her features 
only occasionally relaxing, I should rather say puckering into 
a woful wail, which expressed utter desolation and want of 
comprehension of our natures. She was impervious to all 
my blandishments, which I lavished more bountifully than 
usual to meet the case. When spoken to, she answered in 
a monosyllable, or not at all. When she wanted anything, 
she spoke one word to convey the idea, as a savage would, 
(she was five years old), and these utterances were never 
voluntary. She liked to sit close by her brother, who was 
two years older than herself, and who treated her with great 
tenderness and gentleness, though every manifestation from 
her was of the roughest kind. I was sure, however, that 
I did not see the whole, for his manner of taking her hand 
and saying " little sister " was so peculiar, that I did not 
doubt she was genial to him when not in this purgatory of 
people. 

One day I had a beautiful bunch of flowers from a green- 
house on my table. This child's grandfather owned a green- 
house, but perhaps she had never been allowed to handle the 
flowers, which were altogether too precious for children, and 
wild pinks and violets had not been accessible to her. I had 
been trying many days in vain to interest her about a bee 
of which I had a picture. I had told her the bee made 
honey out of flowers. On that day I drew the tumbler that 
contained these splendid denizens of the greenhouse to the 
edge of the table, and said, — 

" Did you ever see a little bee making honey ? " 

" No." 

" Did you ever go into the country in summer when the 
grass is all green ? " 



142 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

« No." — (I knew she had.) 

" Did you ever see pretty flowers growing ? " 

" No." 

" I will tell you how little bees make honey — did you 
ever eat any honey ? " 

"Yes." 

" They have a long hair sticking out of their heads, and 
they put it in there, where that yellow dust is, and there 
they find a little sweet drop that tastes like sugar, and they 
carry it home, and put it into a little hole, and then they come 
and get more, and carry that home, and they put that yellow 
dust into a little pocket by the side of their little leg, and 
by and by they get enough to make a great deal of honey." 

" Do the bees make it all themselves ? " said she, with a 
brightening look (the first look of intelligence I had seen), 
and at the same time making a plunge at the flowers. 

"Yes," I said, and taking them out of the glass I put them 
all into her hand, for I did not even know that she could 
speak plain. She seized them eagerly, and without taking 
her eyes from them went on volubly asking a great many 
questions. I described the hive and how they all lived to- 
gether, and told her God must have taught them how to 
make honey, for they could not speak or understand any- 
body's words, and that if they wandered ever so far away 
from their hive, they always knew the way back again. 
She held the flowers all the rest of the morning. When 
school was done, I told her to put them into the glass, and 
she should have them again in the afternoon. As soon as 
she returned, she very unceremoniously took possession of 
them, — the first act of volition she had ever ventured upon 
in my presence, — and nestling close to me asked me the 
same questions she had asked before, over and over again, and 
repeating them, and hearing my answers again and again, 
whenever she could secure my attention. As long as the 
flowers lasted, she seized upon them every day, and after 
they were withered to all other eyes, they retained their 
charm in hers. I varied the lesson often, by telling her of 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 143 

the silkworm, of the butterflies, and of many varieties of the 
bee family, and from that time a communication was estab- 
lished between us. She was never afraid of me any more ; 
liked to sit near me ; and have my sympathy in all things, 
provided I did not express it too openly. It was curious to 
see such mauvaise honte in such a tiny thing, for she was 
always reserved, and often relapsed into long silences, and 
was wholly without enterprise in matters in which the other 
children were very active, such as drawing, making block- 
houses, and even playing. But I could catch her eye at any 
time by a story of any living thing, and she would some- 
times surprise me by the intelligence of her questions. For 
a long time she could not learn to read, or rather would not. 
Every new attempt at anything was begun in tears and 
despair, not from weakness, but from pride apparently. Her 
mother had begun to think it time to attend to her poor hid- 
den soul a little ; and after a long summer vacation which 
she passed in the country, she came back to school with 
pleasure and with a new face, and though always backward 
in comparison with children who had had motherly inter- 
course, and been taught early to use their faculties, she 
went steadily on. There was no competition to discourage 
her, and she learned to read immediately when she once 
wished to. None but mothers can do justice to little chil- 
dren. She sometimes made me think of your remark that 
every child needs four mothers. But I think the two heav- 
en-appointed parents will do, if they see their duties and 
fulfil them. 

To disarm your opposition about sending such little tots to 
school, I assure you that many of my mothers tell me that 
the transition from nursery life to my little community has 
cured children of fretting and other faults, and that they 
repeat the occupations of the school-room in their home 
plays. — Read " Christian Nurture," by Dr. Bushnell. 



144 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 



LETTER IV. 

Dear A., — When I have a collection of children around 
me to whom I am to teach things and morals, I always be- 
gin by making a simple statement of the footing on which I 
wish we shall live together. Prevention is better than cure, 
and much is gained with children, as with grown men, by 
expecting from them the best and noblest action. 

In a school or in a family, I do not like any government 
but self-government, yet I wish my scholars to know that I 
often help the growth of the latter by interposing my author- 
ity when that of the inner law fails. When I commenced 
my present school, I had such a conversation with the chil- 
dren on the first day they were assembled, before there had 
been time for any overt acts upon a lower principle than the 
one I wished to inculcate. 

My school consists of children belonging to one class in a 
certain sense of the word, that is, to families of the highest 
general cultivation amongst us, and what is still more im- 
portant, to families in which there is a general if not well 
digested belief in the divinity of human nature. Yet there 
is a great diversity in the influences upon them. Even 
among people of the most liberal views there still lurks a 
sediment of the feeling that there is a principle of evil as 
well as of good in the human soul, and so people expect their 
children to be naughty on that ground. Now I do not be- 
lieve in this. I think all evil is imperfection. It is some- 
times very bad imperfection, I allow, and I am sometimes 
tempted to say poetically, though never literally, that it 
looks like innate depravity. But I do really believe in in- 
dividual perfectibility, and that " circumstance, that unspirit- 
ual god and miscreator," is our great enemy. Circumstance 
is a very important personage in my calendar, and a perfect 
Proteus in the shapes he takes, for he covers not only the 
common surroundings we call circumstances, but organiza- 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 145 

tion itself. Perfection must be in the reach of every one by- 
God's original design, and it is only man's marring that hin- 
ders its progress, and that temporarily. I hope you have the 
same instinct about this that I have. I can remember, even 
when I was not ten years old, hearing some one very severely 
criticised, who I happened to know had had the worst of moral 
educations, and I resented the criticism, not because the sub- 
ject of it was any friend of mine, for it was a person in 
whom I had no particular interest, but I remember the feel- 
ing was a sort of vindication of God's goodness, an assurance 
that he would not judge that unfortunate person harshly or 
unforgivingly, but that the misfortunes she had brought upon 
herself, would teach her what her life at home had failed to 
teach her. How often I have thought of that poor woman 
in my life ! 

To go back to my school. I knew many of the families, 
some intimately enough to know the very peculiarities of 
the children, others only enough to be able to anticipate the 
little characters ; others were perfect strangers, whom I was 
yet to study. Many of them had never been to school be- 
fore, and I knew enough of the usual method of governing 
schools to be aware that the associations of those who had 
been in such scenes, were likely to be those of contention for 
power, the memory of penalties*, and a division of interests 
between teachers and taught. Even at home some of these 
children /fiad been governed by fixed rules, instead of the 
instincts of love, and had never been addressed as if they 
had any sense of right and wrong ; others had been weakly 
indulged, others mostly if not wholly neglected, and left to 
the care of servants. One little boy and girl, children of 
wealthy parents, scarcely saw their father from one month's 
end to another, for he never rose till they went to school ; 
they dined at two and he at five, and before his dinner was 
done, to which he never returned till the last moment, these 
little ones were put to bed. Even the elder children who 
also went to school, saw him only at dinner, for his evenings 
7 



146 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

were usually spent in company, or at some club. I hope 
this is an extreme case. I should say that the mother in this 
family was an amiable woman, but not sufficiently like the 
"near Providence " to counteract the effects of such fatherly 
neglect. 

There was one child, of truly religious and conscientious 
parents, whose moral influence was null, except indirectly, 
because they really believed that the human heart was orig- 
inally depraved, and waited to be saved by special grace 
from God, irrespective of the conscience ; and this girl, who 
was the oldest of my scholars, had less principle to work 
upon than any one, and when I first spoke of the cultivation 
of the mind as a religious duty, she told me very ingenuously 
that it was the first time she had ever heard such a thought, 
although she was considered quite remarkable at home for 
her religious sensibility, and really prayed aloud sometimes 
like a little seraph, in imitation of her truly devout parents ; 
but she was very untruthful. 

A few of the children had been made to feel that every 
human being has a conscience, which, when enlightened, will 
guide him right. In these latter the work of growth had 
already begun, and to them I looked for my allies in the 
work I was about to undertake. I knew that the best I 
could do would only come up to the standard that had ever 
been held up before them. 

I seated them all around me and began by telling them 
how much I loved to keep school for little children, when 
they were good. But children were not always good, and I 
was glad to help them cure their little faults before they 
grew to be great ones, which was the thing most to be 
feared in the world. I hoped the good children here would 
help me make the others better, if there were any naughty 
ones. We must all be patient with naughty people, just as 
God was. It took naughty people a long time to grow bettei 
again. If each child would think about himself a moment 
he would remember that he did not always do perfectly I 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 147 

right ; but God had given everybody a conscience which 
was sometimes called " the voice of God within us," so every 
one could improve who would listen to that voice. 
- There was a right thing to be done in every place. In 
school it would be necessary for all to keep good order, else 
it would be impossible to study, where there were so many 
persons ; it was just as necessary too that all should be polite 
and kind to each other, else there could be no happiness. 
One unkind person could make all the rest uncomfort- 
able. 

After dwelling upon these points till all seemed to recog- 
nize their importance, I told them that some people kept 
order in schools by rigid rules and penalties ; for instance, 
there would "be a rule that every scholar who spoke aloud 
should have a mark for bad conduct, every one that kept 
order, a mark for good conduct ; another rule would be, that 
every lesson learned well should have a mark of approbation, 
every lesson learned ill, a mark of disapprobation. The 
penalties for transgressing rules were floggings, bad reports 
written for parents to see, keeping lag after school, &c. &c. ; 
the recompense for good marks, either a good report, or a 
present, — the handsomest prize being given to the one who 
learned lessons best. 

But I did not wish to keep school thus. I had no respect 
for people who did right only because they feared punish- 
ment or hoped for a reward. Such motives made people 
selfish. I had known of children who would deny having done 
something they had really done, and try to make a teacher 
suppose some one else did it ; and also of other children who 
were sorry when some one else got the present. All these 
things made people selfish, and tempted them to be false. 
We should do right because it was right, whether it were to 
bring us pleasure or pain. It was the duty of all to improve 
their faculties, because God had given them to us for that 
purpose, and had put us into a beautiful world, and given us 
parents and teachers to help us "prepare for a long existence 



148 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

of which this life is but a small part, — a kind of school in 
which we are educated for another world. 

I wished to have but one rule in my school, and that was 
the Golden Rule : " do unto others as you wish others to do 
unto you." 

The duty in school was to study well and to keep order, 
that others might have a chance to study. It would be 
necessary for them all to respect my arrangements, and 
obey my wishes for the sake of this order, but they need not 
think of prizes or marks, for I should give none. 

I wished them to govern themselves. This would make 
it unnecessary for me to watch them all the time. I should 
soon learn who was worthy of being trusted. 

Did they not like to be trusted ? 

They responded warmly to this. 

Did they not like to do as they pleased ? 

There was, of course, but one answer to this question. 

I told them none could be allowed to do that in school ex- 
cept those who pleased to do right, because it was my duty 
to prevent them from disturbing each other, or from wasting 
their own time. But I hoped never to be obliged to punish 
any one for doing wrong. I should make no rules at present, 
and if I found all were polite, obliging, and industrious, I 
should never need to make any ; but if there were any in 
school who did not obey conscience, and think about other 
people's convenience, I should be obliged to make rules for 
such. I should put the names of such scholars on a paper, 
and those children must live by my rules, because they had 
none of their own. 

I considered proper manners in school to be quietness, no 
unnecessary speaking or moving about in study time, polite- 
ness to every one, ready obedience to my wishes and arrange- 
ments, and industrious habits of study. 

I should now leave each one to make rules for himself in 
his own mind ; they might write them down if they pleased. 
I should like to see what each one would think it right to do 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 149 

in school. They might imagine themselves keeping school, 
and tell how they should govern it, and what they thought 
the duties of scholars. 

Some of them did this. Their regulations were very 
strict, their requisitions very great. Those who were then 
morally ready to apprehend my meaning, have never swerved 
since from the law laid down at that time. 

But it was not long before several names were upon my 
list. For these I made specific rules, taking especial pains 
to say that they were not to apply to such or such individuals. 

If E or L or S , for instance, should speak aloud 

on a pressing occasion, I should not subject them to the pen- 
alty, because I knew their principles were good ; that they 
thought of the convenience of others, were studious, &c, &c. 
I should excuse a particular instance of apparent disorder in 
them until I had reason to think they were growing care- 
less or thoughtless. 

I made the same remark in regard to an occasional want 
of success in a lesson. I might perhaps have erred in judg- 
ment by giving too long a lesson. I might find upon experi- 
ment that the mind was not prepared for a particular thing. 
I should be inclined to think an industrious and conscientious 
scholar did not feel well, rather than to suppose any want of 
faithfulness. People must always be judged according to 
their characters. 

I assure you it was a great punishment to have one's name 
upon my list. These children saw the joys of liberty, and 
that they could be secured only by doing right. I never saw 
any system of rewards or punishments have such a stimulat- 
ing moral or intellectual effect. 

Some of my scholars were too young even to be bound 
in all cases by this law of the general convenience, and these 
I spoke of as children whose habits were to be formed gradu- 
ally, and of whom this comprehension of the convenience of 
others could not always be expected. I called upon the rest 
to help me keep them as quiet as would be consistent with 



150 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

their good, and took it for granted that none would trouble 
me by playing or interfering with them. There must, of 
course, be exceptions to all rules. 

There were many occasions of recurring to this conversa- 
tion, and of repeating its principles. When any overt acts 
of wrong-doing occurred, when new scholars came, I called 
them around me to talk about the principles on which we 
must live and act. These conversations were always inter- 
esting to the children, and kept up the government of the 
school. When I make rules and penalties for my delinquents, 
I make the rules as simple as possible, and the penalties as 
nearly like the natural consequences of wrong-doing as is 
practicable. I never lose an opportunity of inculcating obe- 
dience to the inward law as the only sure guide of conduct, 
and if one's eye is fixed upon this point, a thousand occasions 
will offer themselves. How can any one who does not be- 
lieve this inward law to be the only sure guide of conduct 
govern children morally ? I have a friend, quite a distin- 
guished teacher, who believes in original depravity, and that 
conscience is not an unerring guide, anjl therefore that re- 
ligious principle cannot be made to grow out of a child's con- 
sciousness, but that it is an arbitrary gift of God ; supervened 
upon the human mind without reference to conscience. He 
once asked me if there were any religious exercises in my 
school ; if I ever presented religious motives, and what they 
were. I told him I presented no other, that I made all duty 
a matter of conscience, and that I never saw a child who did 
not understand that motive. He said he had no doubt it was 
the noblest way of treating the child, and brought out the 
highest morality, but it was not religious education in his 
opinion ! What an admission ! the noblest way, bringing 
out the highest morality, and yet not religious education ! 
His school is the constant scene of religious revivals, and by 
his own admission the children are told not to keep company 
with the children of liberal Christians, or of those who go 
to the theatre ! I do not believe in a premature Christianity, 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 151 

so taught as to be able to give an account of itself in early 
youth. 

I once visited an Infant Charity School, composed entirely 
of children who were not likely to have any kind of instruc- 
tion at home, so that whatever was taught in the school would 
be likely to make quite an impression. After a pleasant lit- 
tle exercise in marching and singing, they were seated for a 
religious lesson. What do you think of the following as a 
basis of Christian charity ? — average age of the children, 
eight. 

What are the principles of Christianity ? 

To love one's neighbor and obey God, to believe in the 
Bible and the salvation by Christ 

Who are the heathen ? 

They are people who never heard of the Christian religion, 
and who cannot have salvation by Christ. 

Name the heathen nations ? 

Indians, Hindoos, the people of Asia, Africa, and the 
islands in the Pacific Ocean. 

What is the difference between Christians and heathen ? 

Christians serve God, walk humbly, and love their neigh- 
bors like themselves. Heathens lie, steal, commit murder, 
and are full of revenge. 

Are all the people in Christendom true Christians ? 

No, only those who believe that God the Father took the 
form of man and came down to the earth, preached, suffered, 
and was crucified on the Cross. 

What becomes of all who are not true Christians, and of 
all the heathen ? 

They go into everlasting fire. 

This was a rote-lesson which the children rattled off glibly. 
Modifications of such lessons are given in schools where 
revivals are considered religious proceedings. 

Is it not fearful to think that there is a child in Christen- 



152 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

dom who is not instructed in the great fundamental truth that 
God has planted in every human soul a principle of conscience 
by which it can distinguish evil from good, and which, if 
obeyed, will save it, by some natural process alike applicable 
to Christian or heathen ? The first principle to which a 
child should be pointed is the principle of law in the human 
breast. God has so made the human soul that this can be 
taught to young children if one only knows how to do it. 
If truly taught, we may safely trust that they can never so 
judge the much-abused heathen. 

One day when I was walking in the mall with my little 
scholars, at recess, some of the children cried out to the 
others that they must not run upon the banks, or the con- 
stable would fine them. The warning was not received in a 
good spirit, and I perceived that the constable was not in 
good repute among children. I well remembered the " tidy- 
man," as our servant called him, of my childish days, and the 
apprehensions I used to entertain lest he should hook me up 
with his long pole into the gallery of the church, if I made 
any noise during service time, and I saw that these children 
thought it quite desirable to circumvent the constable, and 
get as many runs upon the banks as could be snatched dur- 
ing his absence. 

This was an opportunity not to be lost, and when we re- 
turned to the school-room, I asked why they supposed the 
constable was ordered to let no one run upon the banks. 

They were curious to hear a reason. It had not occurred 
to them, apparently, that there was any other reason than a 
desire to trouble children. I told them the history of the 
Boston Common — how much pains had been taken ever 
since the days of the Pilgrims (whom they know), to keep 
it inviolate, in order that all the citizens might enjoy its 
beauties and its advantages ; how much money had been ex- 
pended upon it ; how it had been secured as a perpetual pos- 
session to all the citizens, and how every attempt to build even 
very near it, had been resisted for fear of cutting off the fine 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 153 

prospect ; that even the cows that used to pasture there, had 
been turned away that the children of the city might play 
there undisturbed. I then told them why by-laws were 
made to preserve the beauty of the banks, particularly just 
after they were repaired and newly laid down with turf. 

When they acknowledged that all this was reasonable, I 
told them that laws were made for the good of society, and 
that every good citizen would respect such laws. Whoever 
understood what law meant, that is, whoever knew the law 
within themselves, would respect the laws of a country or a 
city that were made for the good of all. I thought my les- 
son was successful. 

One who has not been a great deal alone with the un- 
sophisticated natures of children has little idea how early the 
highest principles of action can be instilled into them. It 
does not need many words, as I well remember from the few 
indelibly written upon my mind by a religious mother, who 
never comforted my timidity, which was excessive, by any- 
thing but principles which my soul responded to: "Do right 
always, and then you need not be afraid of anything ; " and, 
" Your Heavenly Father will take care of you, and will let 
nothing happen to you but what is for your good," comprised 
the religious inculcations of my childhood, varied according 
to circumstances. And when I first fully realized that Christ, 
who was held up as a model, was " tempted like as we are," 
my religious education was complete, except what 'practice 
could give me. The imagination is as boundless in the 
images it evokes as imagery itself, and no specific cure for 
fears of darkness and unmeasured danger can ever meet the 
difficulty. If a timid child cannot be taught that he is under 
the eye of a tender and watchful Providence, his childhood 
may be one long terror, as I have known to be the case. If 
to this is to be added everlasting woe for wrong-doing, ther« 
is no wonder that God must come down from heaven to set 
things right, and invent a scheme which will virtually anni- 
hilate his own original provisions 
7* 



154 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

Many of my children have been religiously educated in 
the right way, have been made to think of God as their 
creator, benefactor, and preserver, and the author of all the 
beauties of nature that they see, and the powers they pos- 
sess. When I say " we must return good for evil as Christ 
did, who was the most perfect being that ever lived," they 
understand me as speaking of a principle which they can 
apply directly to themselves ; for I often add, " Christ said 
things when he was very young that showed he understood 
all about right and wrong, and in those years of his life 
which we are not told anything about in the Bible, he must 
always have obeyed his conscience, or he never could have 
preached to others as he did afterwards," — for the only vital 
use of Christ's life to others is to make his spirit of action 
our own, and to believe that we can do likewise. 

I have been led to think much of this in relation to chil- 
dren, by hearing my orthodox friend talk ; for he is a very 
conscientious man, and his admission that to address the 
child's conscience was the noblest way of treating it, though 
not the canonical one, let in a world of light upon me touch- 
ing the unchristian condition of Christendom. How can 
truth prevail where the noblest appeal is not considered the 
religious appeal ? Truly yours, 

M. 

LETTER V. 

My dear Anna, — If you wish to know the practical 
difficulties that arise out of my desire to inculcate self-gov- 
ernment, and to keep my own out of sight as much as possi- 
ble, I will tell you candidly that liberty is sometimes abused 
in my school ; but I have never repented of my principles, 
and have learned not to be frightened by apparent failures, 
for I have never known an instance, where I have had an 
opportunity to observe the result, in which my plan has not 
answered somewhat to my hopes. 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 155 

And now I must tell you what are my hopes. They are 
not to make men and women of children, or to produce per- 
fect consistency of action in youth. They are to put the 
mind in the right attitude so that the education of life will 
bring forth the character harmoniously ; and to make truth, 
sincerity, kindly affections, and a conscientious use of the 
powers of the mind the prevailing characteristics. Some- 
times I wait long for the dawning of this hope, but I cannot 
despair of it as long as I believe in the soul. I do not mean 
that I think the soul self-existent, independent of God, but 
I believe it so created that it can right itself at last with due 
effort to realize His presence in vital laws. To induce it 
to make this effort is what education is designed to effect, is 
it not ? I have had some children under my care who have ■ 
come to me deceitful, perverse, without delicacy of sensibil- 
ity, self-conceited, puffed up with lofty notions of their own 
importance and that of all who belonged to them ; and these 
characteristics so prominent and offensive that our inter- 
course was for a long time nothing but war. I had no op- 
portunity to express approbation or sympathy, for the object 
with them was to defy or circumvent me, and to accomplish 
their lessons by trickery instead of honest application. These 
faults were constantly recurring, and I was often strongly 
tempted to rid myself of the difficulty by declining to keep 
such scholars in school with others. If my operations had 
necessarily been confined to one apartment, I should have 
been obliged to do this sometimes, but in my father's house 
I had many facilities, and I felt it my duty, if possible, to do 
what I could for such unfortunate children, as long as I was 
sure that my influence, and not theirs, prevailed in the school. 
I saw that vices were made apparent, of whose existence I 
could have wished innocent children never to know, but I 
knew it was impossible to sequester them wholly from such 
contact, and perhaps it had better be under supervision and 
thus possibly turned to account. Sometimes the beauty of 
virtue is better seen by being contrasted with its opposite. 



156 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

Had not I a right to think the evil might be overruled for 
good, since God permits evil (the negative of good) in his 
world ? To do this, however, requires the greatest vigilance, 
and occasionally I have been obliged to suspend very much 
the intellectual training of a school, to gain time to investi- 
gate its moral state, and the degree of evil influence that 
might tend to counteract mine, for these interlopers among 
the innocents sometimes had bright parts, and an activity 
that never tired. The faults of such children often brought 
them into direct collision with their companions whose peace 
they invaded, and thus far I was aided by my scholars in 
my discipline, though I have had cases where the outward 
speciousness was only such as one would imagine to belong 
to a matured person. I was obliged to take the greatest 
pains, however, in order not to destroy the very germ of 
delicacy (which yet bore no fruits), that my admonitions 
should be in private, whenever no overt acts made it neces- 
sary for me to speak before others. In private I need not 
speak in measured terms. 

It is frightful to feel one's self so directly in contact with 
the wrong-doing of a fellow-being, but at such times I have 
laid open the heart as well as I was able, and showed the 
characteristics in all their hideousness, taking it for granted 
that the moral judgment was still alive. 

A great man once said to me that we had no second con- 
sciousness by which we could judge ourselves ; and Burns, 
you know, exclaims, — 

" wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as ithers see us ! " 

but I agree neither with the philosopher nor the poet, for 
conscience is that second consciousness, which can be evoked 
if only the right conjurer speaks. I believe in no other 
safeguard than that " voice of God within us " to which I 
firmly believe no human being is always deaf. But, dear 
A-t-, what is so revolting as a bad child ? It seems an 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 157 

anomaly in nature. I depict no imaginary characters to you. 
I do not think I could imagine a bad child. It must be seen 
and known to be believed in. I am always inclined to blame 
the environment of such a child, but repeated instances that 
I have known convince me that souls differ in quality, and 
that it is unreasonable to expect the loveliest type of virtue 
in all. I believe in the remedial power of education, not 
that it can change the quality of the soul, but the character 
of the individual. A bold, free spirit will not by education 
be made delicate, but its boldness may be employed on wor- 
thy objects, and so of other traits. Truth too can be shown 
to be beautiful to some, but to others to be only manly, or 
respectable. 

I have known children, who apparently had very little 
sensibility, to be touched by the fact of never being unneces- 
sarily exposed to others. This care awakened in them a 
perception of delicacy. In one instance, I learned subse- 
quently that reproof received thus in private made a great 
impression, while that administered at the moment of overt 
acts of wrong-doing in the presence of the school made very 
little, or only provoked defiance. I have sometimes had tes- 
timonies of affection from such naughty children, and have 
feared they only proved a want of sensibility, but this in- 
stance showed me that my care and painstaking were ap- 
preciated where I least thought of it. I have often realized 
that I kept bad manifestations in check, though the frequent 
outbreaks of such traits as want of truth, stratagem, attempts 
at secret influence in the school, proofs of want of deli- 
cacy of taste and of conscience, made me feel that all I 
could do in the short period while my influence lasted, was 
to hold up my testimony to good principles, and make an 
adherence to truth, and sincere and conscientious action in 
every particular of life, — the central points round which all 
other things must revolve. This I never lose an opportunity 
of doing by dwelling upon it to others as well as to the 
guilty. In a small school like mine — yet large enough for 



158 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

variety, — I am in such close personal contact with all my 
scholars, that the intimacy is nearly as great as in a family ; 
indeed, my personal. intercourse with many of the children 
includes more hours and more actual communication of mind 
than takes place in some families. It seems to me very im- 
portant that schools should be of such a size that this may 
be the case, if they are to be looked to as a means of moral, 
as well as of intellectual culture ; and if they are not, I con- 
ceive them to be nurseries of as much evil as good, to say 
the least. One of the most melancholy things in life, to me, 
is seeing children get used to what is wrong, submitting to it 
as a necessity of growth ; and a good school, where every- 
thing can be talked over, is an immense check upon this. 
Happily the world cannot spoil a good soul, but there are 
degrees in goodness, and in moral strength, and even good 
souls get tarnished by getting used to evil. I would put off 
the day as long as possible. In cities, where nearly the 
whole of youth is passed in schools, more regard should be 
had to the moral part of the training. Knowledge is dan- 
gerous power to the unconscientious, and every child should 
and can be made to feel it. 

In such deplorable instances as I have referred to, every 
power within me has been taxed to the utmost to counteract 
the evil tendencies that put forth their shoots in every direc- 
tion. Sometimes a clearness of head that made it easy for 
a child to see the bearings of things, or even an instinctive 
affectionateness of disposition (not such as would stand the 
test of opposition, however), have been the only foundations 
of my hope. These do not supply the place of tenderness 
of conscience, but when one is endeavoring to help forward 
that growth, a clear intellect is an important aid. A natural 
obtuseness in both departments of the nature would make 
one's efforts dark and groping indeed. 

Now when I thus confess how small has often been the 
reward for my pains, you may smile at my credulity, but I 
have had some rewards in the midst of discouragements. I 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 159 

did feel in one instance, before my scholar was taken from 
me, — and she was taken away because her mother had not 
the moral courage to let her suffer the natural consequences 
of her wrong-doing, at a crisis when I felt convinced it 
might do her radical good, — that she had a far-off glimpse 
of what character is ; that the fine saying of Novalis, " char- 
acter is a well-educated will," had dawned upon her mind ; 
for she could sometimes tell the truth against her own in- 
terest, and could bear the natural consequences of a fault, 
occasionally, without flying into a passion. My " natural 
consequences " were, privation from the society of her com- 
panions when she had abused their faith and their peace, &c. 
The child was willing herself to sit, for a whole term, in 
another apartment, and not enter the school-room except for 
a recitation, and to have no part in the plays of the school, 
but her mother was not willing. 

This child I could not call noble-minded, or generous- 
hearted, or a lover of truth, or a self-governing being, but I 
thought she had been able to discern glimpses of these char- 
acteristics in others whom she had wronged, and that had 
given me hope. I was thankful that I had given her prin- 
ciples instead of penalties, and that I had had faith enough 
to wait for the dawning of light within herself, without giving 
her up or producing a false shine by addressing lower mo- 
tives. She would have despised me at that moment, if I had 
yielded to her mother's wish that I should reinstate her in 
school before she had outlived her probation, which the child 
and I had agreed to be the best discipline for her. I am in- 
clined to think she judged her mother unfavorably at that 
time, for she often came to see me afterward, to ask me if I 
thought such and such things were right — things which she 
evidently had heard discussed. She was but eleven, but she 
had a wonderful power of writing symbolically. She once 
wrote a legend in imitation of those of Spenser's " Faery 
Queene," which showed great intellectual insight into the dis- 
tinctions between right and wrong, and her sense of her own 



160 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

faults was such that if anything closely resembling them was 
read of in school, she would put her head under the table, as 
if she knew and felt its application. The apparent attrac- 
tion of my society to this child was very significant to me. 
She would ask me the most subtle questions in morals, and 
discourse as well as I could, so that I felt as if her knowl- 
edge of right and wrong, gained through the intellect, was 
rather a hinderance than a help to her moral improvement, 
for she was guilty every day of malicious falsehoods. Her 
envy of her companions was sickening to the heart, for 
it made her active in injuring them. She had vanity 
rather than ambition, for her desire to excel did not spur 
her to any troublesome efforts, it only made her hate every 
pursuit in. which others excelled her, either by natural gift 
or by conscientious, patient industry. At such times she 
would throw her books across the room, and stamp upon the 
floor like a little maniac. Her unusual brilliancy of imagi- 
nation, unaccompanied by any sedative qualities, was one 
explanation of her character. Her wit and fancy gave her 
great influence over her companions, by whom she was ad- 
mired, or feared, or held in great aversion. She had a pas- 
sionate attachment to one girl a little older than herself, who 
was singularly lovely and delicate in mind and conscience ; 
but this passionate love alternated with fits of persecution, 
arising wholly out of envy, so that I have known her friend, 
who was strangely fascinated by her, to be ill for several 
days, in consequence of painful scenes of its display. This 
little Italian soul, born under our cold skies, was almost a 
fiend at eleven years old. Perhaps the intellectual insight 
she possessed at that early age, will be useful to her at any 
period of life when her moral nature shall be awakened. I 
have known instances in which the latter slumbered in child- 
hood, and was roused into vivid action later in life by crush- 
ing and heart-scathing events, consequent upon its early 
torpor ; and I should not be surprised if she should yet come 
to me across the wastes of life for sympathy and help ; for 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 161 

she knew I would fain have given her my time and strength 
to awaken in her a love of excellence. Such characters have 
success in the world from very unscrupulousness, till they 
trample too proudly on the rights of others. The charms 
they do possess, whether personal or mental, lure them on to 
greater evils till they are thrown back suddenly into the 
presence of eternal truth, and then what misery must ensue, 
what a reckoning must come ! Do such children of God 
see wider and deeper into the eternal truth for having gone 
astray ? I would fain think so ; for in this universe of com- 
pensations we can only see that one for the lost heaven of 
innocent childhood. Let those who have not such tempta- 
tions mourn over, but not despise the erring ! 

I would aid many children to conquer temper by a near 
penalty, or give courage to confess a fault by taking away 
the apprehension of all other punishment than the natural 
one of self-reproach, reflected from the mother-confessor; 
but sometimes I see children who are afraid of nothing in 
heaven or earth, the current of whose impertinence I can 
indeed check for the moment ; the bold, defying glance of 
whose eye I can quell, but the coarse texture of whose mind 
admits none of the more delicate influences. A large gener- 
osity, or a great moral indignation or self-conquest, may be 
comprehended by such children, but not a fine sympathy, 
or a tender regret. 

I have had pupils with as violent passions, as determined 
will, as much intellectual insight, and a temperament that 
made eyery emotion as keen as the stroke of a Damascus 
blade, but a sensibility that would respond to the gentlest 
touch, and a conscience whose stings were like a sharp goad. 
This keenness of nature made childhood's experience like 
that of a matured mind that had seen and felt the conse- 
quences of evil ; and the gravity of age took the place of 
the buoyancy of childhood. A word in season would bring 
such a child to repentance and amendment too, for I think 
nothing of occasional backsliding, where the desire of im- 



162 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

provement prevails. Sucli children are subject to abuse 
of a peculiar kind, which they seldom escape. This quick 
sensibility is too often called forth, and a morbid sensitive- 
ness is produced which too often takes refuge in reckless- 
ness. I have known such instances where the very words 
" doing right " became hateful, when uttered by lips that 
had invaded too often the sacred sensibility. Such vivid in- 
tellects are also apt to be exercised too strongly for the en- 
tertainment of others, and excited to undue activity by ques- 
tions of morals which should not be urged thus early, if we 
wish for a healthful development. The principle of self- 
government is thus impaired, not strengthened. The trial 
of strength ought to come later in life ; and truthfulness 
alone will save one who has such painful associations with 
virtue. I am thinking now of a particular child whose peace 
of mind I have seen thus disturbed fearfully, and to whom I 
felt it my duty to secure as much tranquillity as the hours 
he passed with me could contain, even if advancement in 
literature must be sacrificed to that end. 

I know nothing more painful than to see a child of deli- 
cate sensibility, and lively moral sense, growing hardened to 
the wrong-doing of others, as it grows older, and even learn- 
ing to expect it. I have seen this in more than one child, 
and it has made me feel that there is a limit beyond which 
we should not open the eyes of childhood. Let them live in 
happy unconsciousness of all evil but that which is in them- 
selves, as long as possible, and let the characters of others be 
mysterious to them, rather than let them acquire the habit 
of looking out for blemishes by hearing low motives attrib- 
uted to others. I would never trace out evil in character 
before children, except where refraining from doing so might 
risk the injury of the moral sense. We all know, I fear, 
what it is to have our idols cast down, and our ideal dese- 
crated and sad ; bitter indeed is the wakening from our 
dream of man-and-woman-worship ; but we learn one thing 
by dwelling upon the perfection of our ideal, and that is, 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 1G3 

of what we are capable. No one can ever realize that who 
has not worshipped some fellow-mortal, at some time. I 
would not forget the passionate loves of my childhood for 
anything I have yet realized in life. 

Upon the whole, if I find truth in a character, I pass 
lightly over all other deficiencies. And even some forms 
of falsehood do not discourage me. A child that is man- 
aged by strategem will almost inevitably become artful ; but 
a generous, confiding treatment, in which his honor is trust- 
ed, will probably bring him back to candor and simplicity. 
I love to teach children to look upon and understand the 
virtues of others, to excite their enthusiasm for fearless 
truth, self-sacrifice, and long-suffering patience and kindness. 
All the experience of my life is worked up into little stories. 
When I say " once I knew, &c," I always chain attention. 
I love to tell of one child I knew when very young, who 
would never let another child communicate any secret, as 
children take such pleasure in doing, without saying in an- 
swer to the question, " Will you never tell ? " " Nobody 
but my mother." This was her invariable answer, and her 
sturdiness through all manner of ridicule made a great im- 
pression upon me. We were inseparable companions, and 
I remember nothing that bound me to her so strongly as 
this uprightness. I adopted the same measure by her ad- 
vice, and we doubtless escaped much evil in that way. She 
went by the name of " Nobody Bat" but she had true moral 
courage, and I used to resent, in her behalf, this nick- 
name. My loyalty to her generally saved me from even the 
temptation of being asked. This and other small heroes 
and heroines are important mythological personages in my 
school. 

I have one scholar who was brought to me from a very 
large school where no child could receive individual atten- 
tion, and no subject of interest was either studied or talked 
about. Certain outward actions brought certain rewards or 
punishments. The principles of self-government and con- 



164 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

• 

science were never addressed. His mind, of fine natural 
powers, would have been starved all that time if he had not 
had intellectual culture at home. When he came into my 
school-room I could see that every association with such 
scenes was wearisome and disgusting. Before the study- 
bell was rung, he would pour into my ear the whole history 
of his life, his excursions among the mountains, the stories 
told him by his travelled uncles, his knowledge of animals, 
birds, flowers, and all in a childlike spirit of confidence in 
my interest and sympathy, which he caught from the other 
children. But when the school-hour came, a lassitude per- 
vaded all his faculties, and even a spirit of opposition seem- 
ed to take possession of him. It was not the signal for many 
pleasant things to happen, as with the rest, but for some 
stupid effort to be made. The memory of many thousand 
spelling lessons, including countless words to which no idea 
was attached in his mind, and of dull readings of the same 
uninteresting sentences from the beginning to the end of the 
year, and the adding, subtracting, and dividing of inexpres- 
sive numbers, came thronging thick upon him. I learned the 
facts from outside testimony, first suspecting them from their 
effects. It needed only to look at him to see them written 
in his expressive face. 

As soon as I saw clearly how it was, I determined that 
my school-room should for a time be as much like the wild 
woods as I could make it, consistently with due decorum ; 
that he should enjoy the sweets of liberty in certain ways, 
while at the same time I would endeavor gently to substitute 
for his previous associations with study, something more liv- 
ing. I soon saw that he evidently thought be was to do 
pretty much as he pleased. I did not always check him 
when he walked to the window without any apparent object 
but to enjoy the prospect in the street, though I sometimes 
expressed surprise that he should do it when I had given 
him a lesson to learn. He saw no black marks expressive 
of the youthful sins of looking up from his book, or treading 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 165 

on the toes of his neighbors, though after a while I gave him 
a little table by himself, because he had not self-control 
enough to refrain from such interference with others. I once 
remarked to him that he was like those people whom society 
put into the State-prison, because he violated social duties. 
Only those could enjoy freedom who did not interfere with 
others' rights and comforts. The taste for liberty soon spread 
into other things. He did not like to study anything that 
required an effort, and showed a great feeling of discourage- 
ment whenever anything new was required of him. He al- 
ways said " can't," and often added in a half whisper, " wont.'' 
I did not yield to this, but insisted upon having my requisi- 
tions answered, partly because obedience must be the cardinal 
virtue in school, and partly because I knew such despondency 
would never be conquered unless by a sense of power to con- 
quer difficulties. Much time and labor it cost me and him 
to establish my authority in this respect, and to induce him 
to begin to study a hard lesson. After I had gained these 
points, however, I gradually set aside those things to which 
he had the most aversion, and which had no interest but one 
borrowed from a sense of duty, and thought it best to let him 
choose more for himself. I could have done this earlier if 
the aversion to certain mental efforts had not been accompa- 
nied with wilful resistance to my wishes, and a want of con- 
sideration for my duties. Many of the vile tricks of school- 
boys, both in school and in play-hours, annoyed me and his 
companions. 

At last the reaction began to take place. He became in- 
terested in Latin fables and natural history, and when I 
began to administer less interesting things in small doses, he 
would bring his book to me saying, " I can't tell how to get 
this lesson," instead of " I shall never get this, and I am not 
going to try." When I found he could adopt a suggestion 
from me as to the best way to conquer a difficulty, I could 
send him into another room to pronounce French phrases 
aloud, without the interruption of other recitations. I had 



166 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

no possible penalties for the recurrence of fits of idleness, 
and when he interrupted others, I only expressed my surprise 
and regret that he should be so childish and selfish, and occa- 
sionally sent him home because he was utterly disagreeable. 
These faults seemed to be the result of a morbid activity 
where healthful manifestations had been arbitrarily checked, 
and not an evil disposition ; for he really loved little children, 
and was communicating and confiding to me before and after 

school, quite courteous and polite to me as Miss P , but 

wholly in opposition to the school-dame. I always took pains 
to appeal to him for his traveller's stories when they came in 
appropriately to the geography lesson, or could illustrate in 
any way what was read. School began gradually to afford 
him the same sort of pleasure he received from reading with 
his mother, which was always agreeable, and had stored his 
mind with pleasant knowledge. In morals as well as in les- 
sons I did the same thing. I called upon him to help me 
take care of the little children when we walked, because I 
saw he could do this with ease and pleasure. As soon as 
any other relation took the place of the school relation, all 
things went on agreeably. He knew that I respected his 
word, and that his story had due weight in the scale when 
I asked for various testimony in regard to any subject of 
difference. 

My object was, as you will perceive, to leave him to feel 
the natural consequences of doing wrong, instead of fearing 
any arbitrary punishment ; being confident that the natural 
sequence of things (that is, God's arrangements) would en- 
lighten the mind as no mere penalty or mere precept could 
do. I often feel that I can see the prominent points in a case 
like this, where a mother may not, owing to her position. 
Neither do mothers know the faults of the school-room. I 
give information of these, as they tell me the faults of the 
nursery. Children that cry mSch in nurseries, seldom cry at 
all in a school-room, where a pleasing variety occupies the 
time, and a seed-grain of self-control is planted ; and temp- 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 167 

tations arise in the school-room, where peculiar efforts and 
sacrifices are called for, that do not assail the child at home. 
The mother of this boy could hardly be made to believe that 
in school-hours neither his intellect nor his conscience acted, 
because she knew they did at other times. It was as if a 
spell bound him there. In his previous school-life there had 
been little but spelling-lessons, and what is called discipline, 
which consists, as far as I can understand, (and I have in- 
quired very particularly of those who advocate the system,) 
of teaching as many uninteresting words as can be crowded 
into the memory, especial care being taken to keep out of the 
way all ideas. It was in such a conversation that the view 
was advanced to which I have before alluded, that the less 
interest, the more discipline of study. The advocate of such 
a plan thought everything that was studied in youth was for- 
gotten, be it what it might, therefore training (alias misery 
and waste of time) was alone useful or desirable. He in- 
stanced his own experience as a proof of this, and where it 
was gently insinuated that perhaps if those forgotten geogra- 
phy lessons, Latin lessons, etc., had had any interest of their 
own, such as associations with interesting people, or the 
amusement of a story, they might have kept their place in 
his mind, he rejected the idea entirely, showing, as the Puri- 
tans did when they persecuted the Quakers for doing the 
very thing they had done, the evils of a bad education. I 
even ventured a little story, (that being a lively kind of ar- 
gument I like to use,) of a little girl in my school, who, when 
I was endeavoring to make her hear the thunder-music and 
see the rainbow-tinted spray of Niagara Falls, exclaimed, 
" Why, I never knew before that Niagara Falls was made of 
water ! " — but I found he could not be taught " out of the 
mouth of babes and sucklings." 

I could have told him, if I had not been discouraged, of 
a dear little boy of my acquaintance, seven years old, whom 
his mother wished to send to my school, but his more ambi- 
tious father chose to put him into the Latin Grammar-School, 



168 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

(the very one of which this gentleman was usher when I 
talked with him.) His mother begged me to let him come 
to me privately to learn with me the terrible Latin Grammar- 
lesson of three pages, which was to be his first lesson in the 
school, and the language. So little Georgie and I had a 
secret session every day for a long time, in which we got the 
lesson together — I would hear him say it, and he would 
hear me, and I endeavored to extract some hidden meaning 
from it for him, but although I saved him from many a ferul- 
ing, his hatred of school became so intense, from the impos- 
sibility he found of ever succeeding without penalty and suf- 
fering, that he actually broke down in spirits and health, and 
was at last taken away and sent to a military school to save 
his life. His mother and I knew why he failed, for he was 
of delicate organization, easily frightened, and his sensibility, 
w r hich was keen and might have opened to him the beauties 
of the universe, was poisoned and embittered by unjust 
severity and the fearful drill of that model school. Some of 
my boys who have gone there after having learned to use 
their faculties, have succeeded well, and found no difficulties ; 
but poor little George was taken from what I call a spelling- 
school, and put into that tread-mill, as it proved to him. I 
attribute a subsequent unhappy career to this mistake in his 
education, but I hope something will yet evoke his originally 
lovely nature.* 

When one hears such views as these, and many others of 
similar import that I could recount, one almost despairs of 
ever seeing a whole man. The fact that there is a grain of 
truth in such heaps of falsehood, only increases the difficulty, 
because that grain of truth prevents the recognition of that 
mass of error. My observation and experience are that, not 
till things are intelligently learned do they begin to fertilize 
the mind, or are they even sure to stay in it, and scarcely a 
fine intellect will give you any other record of itself than that 
the date of its improvement began at that era when either 
* Since writing the al>ove he has d'ed untimely. 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 169 

self-education or the wise teacher showed it the thread of 
relation that runs through all things. Not till at least one 
human fact has exemplified some spiritual law, does the in- 
tellect work intelligently, or begin to arrange its stores. Do 
we not know some minds that are mere encyclopedias, which 
imagination has never penetrated with its Ithuriel spear ? If 
such have moral sense in any fair proportion, they are liable 
to become hopelessly miserable in this world of shadows be- 
cause they can see nothing but the shadows. 

I once knew a mother who was a beautiful type to me of 
the spirit that should actuate the guardians of the young. 
She looked upon a soul with such awe that it was not easy 
for her to impose her authority upon her children, for might 
there not be something in their natures superior to her own ? 
The possibility of this made her cautious in her requisitions, 
lest she should nip some beautiful bud of promise in them. 
I knew her when they were all young, and I saw that it was 
not want of decision, but the fear of doing harm that often 
arrested her action. The children were not always serene 
and happy, and sometimes not obedient, for they had strong 
wills, and what is called a great deal of character. How 
could there but be strong individuality in such a family ? 
There was no fixed pattern by which they were all to be 
measured. But they reverenced her as she did them, for 
she lived and acted simply and genuinely, and encompassed 
them round about with her tenderness, practising daily those 
virtues of devotion and self-denial which are demanded of 
the mother of a large family, and never turning a deaf ear 
to the wants of those less favored with earthly happiness 
than herself. She treated her children with the respect one 
human being owes to another, irrespective of age. Yet she 
did not commit the error we sometimes see of reasoning out 
every point of duty with children, thus teaching them to 
quibble and catch at words. She could check that while she 
showed respect for their reasons. She had that true humil- 
ity which makes its possessors question every step of the 
8 



170 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

way in the path of duty, while they have a trusting faith that 
there is something within them to answer to its calls. 

She died suddenly, and then her influence, which many 
might have doubted, appeared in a wonderful and beautiful 
manner. Circumstances were such that no one was able to 
take the proper care of the family for a month or two in the 
absence of the father. The eldest children, two boys, one 
fourteen, the other eleven, immediately took the place of their 
mother as a matter m of course, assumed the personal care 
which they had seen their mother take every day, of six little 
brothers and sisters, arranging everything as their mother 
had done, even in such minutiae as placing the clothes in the 
proper drawers, and washing and dressing the younger chil- 
dren, which the mother had never left to servants, although 
the home was well supplied with them. In a quiet and un- 
ostentatious manner a large establishment had been managed 
by a superior mind so skilfully, that these boys found no diffi- 
culty in keeping everything in train till their father's return. 
They had been inspired by their mother with a sense of or- 
der, propriety, and responsibility, for it was a peculiarity in 
her that she rather acted than inculcated principles, and 
through their great and tender affection, which had been her 
happiness in life, her characteristics flowed naturally and 
without a break into their lives. Such a mother should 
every teacher be, especially of young children. 

You need not tell me that mothers and teachers must be 
wise as well as tender, courageous as well as reverential. 
I know it well. I can tell you of a young mother who risked 
an essential injury to her child (humanly speaking, for we 
cannot injure the essence of another) by allowing him to 
quibble upon subjects of right and wrong, and accepting his 
excuses when he could found them upon any inadvertence 
of hers. His mental motions were more rapid than hers, I 
and a morbid tenderness of conscience made her hesitate to j 
lay injunctions upon him, lest she might err in judgment. 
A natural tendency to subtlety and stratagem was thus fos- J 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 171 

tered in him, and as he had not much imagination, there was 
danger that he would become actually deceitful. He led an 
innocent life compared with many boys of his age, for he was 
kept very much out of harm's way, but I soon perceived the 
pleasure he experienced from a successful trick of fun, and 
that his great command over his nerves tempted him to play 
many such, which he could do with a grave face. I never 
saw one that was not in itself innocent fun, and if they had 
been practised as some children practise them, who will be- 
tray their agency the next moment from mere artlessness, 
I should only have battled the point with him as I do with 
others who play in school in study hours, (or rather half 
hours.) But I saw that this was likely to become a deeper 
evil, connected as it was with his habit of excusing himself, 
finding flaws in my directions, and quibbling upon words. 
It was too serious a matter for penalties of my device, de- 
signed as reminders, nor was I willing to enter the lists with 
him and vanquish him by my superior sagacity, for this would 
be only sharpening his tools. 

I took a good opportunity one day to call what he did 
mean, and to tell him that I thought he was growing cunning, 
which I was very sorry for, as that led to deception of all 
sorts. It was very funny to pull another boy's hair, and 
then look grave as if he knew nothing about it, which I had 
often seen him do, but I could not laugh at fun, when it was 
at the expense of truthfulness, though I enjoyed a good joke 
as well as any one. It was wrong, too, for him to play when 
I was looking the other way, because it was cheating me and 
setting a bad example to the other scholars. I liked to be 
able to trust people's honor, and when I gave a direction, 
and then went to the other side of the room to attend to 
others, in the confidence that my wishes would be conscien- 
tiously regarded, I was disappointed and grieved to find that 
I was cheated. I did not like to be obliged to watch people. I 
could not respect any one I must watch, and I would not watch 
him. If he would do wrong and teach others to do so, he 



172 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

must sit entirely by himself. As to himself, no one else 
could cure him of his faults. If he was willing to grow de- 
ceitful, no one could help it ; but if he had no honor, every 
one must defend himself against him, and he could command 
no respect from any one, nor have any of his own, which I 
thought more precious than that of others. What was a 
person good for who could not have self-respect? It was 
a pleasant thing to make other people laugh, but if he could 
allow another to bear the blame of it, and not speak up to 
say he was the offender, I could not trust him even when 
he did speak. I added, that I had long observed these 
tricks of his, and had been sure they would at last lead to 
meanness, and here was an instance of it just as I had 
expected. I also reminded him of an occasion when I 
saw him take an unfair advantage in play for the mere 
pleasure of winning a little game, thus giving up his honor 
for the enjoyment of a moment. I hoped he would remem- 
ber these instances and the danger to which he was exposing 
himself. I would not dare to punish such faults, for I might 
be suspicious of him when he did not deserve it, as I could 
not always read his mind or be sure of his sincerity. The 
punishment must be the one God had appointed for such 
faults — and that was, a loss of integrity itself, the most dread- 
ful of all punishments. 

The child loved me and thought a great deal of my opin- 
ion. He did not wish the tears in his eyes to fall, and he 
swallowed them till his face flushed. I had spoken before 
all the school, as it was a public offence not <to be passed 
over; for nothing is more attractive to children than the 
wittiness of practical jokes, as I knew one child to confess 
when asked which boys he liked best in a certain story, 
" Oh the bad boys," said he, " I like the wittiness of them." 

I afterwards took every opportunity to put this little fel- 
low upon his honor, and often said, so that he might hear 
it, that if any one wished to be fair and honorable, they 
had better not indulge in what seemed very innocent fun 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 173 

when concealment was necessary, for fear of learning to 
deceive. I often appealed to him for testimony, because I 
knew he had accuracy of observation, and dwelt particularly 
on such occasions upon my wish that he should tell me 
all his own part in a transaction, very carefully, both good 
and bad, for the sake of helping me to do justice, and urged 
him not to be cowardly, or keep back anything for fear of 
being blamed. Blame, I once told him, was one of our best 
friends. The fear of it sometimes kept us from doing wrong 
even when we had no better reason, and when we had done 
wrong, it showed us to ourselves, just as we were, and waked 
conscience up to its duty. Only cowards were afraid to tell 
the truth against themselves. Yet I checked him whenever 
he told tales of others ; which is a thing I always carefully 
discriminate from telling the truth when asked. I checked 
him also because one of his bad habits was to excuse himself, 
and the temptation that assailed him was to throw the blame 
on others. 

In every way I could think of, I thus tried to show him 
how his particular tendencies would lead him into falsehood, 
which I assumed to be the greatest of faults. 

After three years' continuance in my school, I assure you 
there was not a child in it that I would more readily trust, 
and though he always annoyed me with his playfulness, it 
ceased to be tricky. I had frequent occasions to notice his 
candor and to refer to his improvement. I never spoke to 
him again before the school upon the subject of his mean 
fault, but I kept it fresh in his own mind, and long after, 
when I reproved another child for symptoms of the same 
fault, I remarked that one of my scholars had once given 
me the same cause to fear for his integrity, but he had 
watched himself, and I was glad to say he had resisted 
temptation and grown honorable and trustworthy. I saw 
that he knew who I meant, but the others had forgotten 
who it could be. I did not gratify their curiosity, of course. 

I do not know that this boy is above temptation, but I 



174 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

have had many proofs of his power to resist it ; occasions 
that brought him no glory, some of which I have recog- 
nized by such a remark as " how respectable honesty is," or 
" how I like to see moral courage that fears nothing but 
doing wrong." Sometimes I took no visible notice, for we 
need not always praise well-doing. It is often both un- 
necessary and unwise, for where goodness is not wholly 
spontaneous, it may be vitiated by love of approbation. It 
is only perfect goodness, or such measure of that as mortals 
may attain, that can always bear praise and grow only more 
fervent for it. 

Sometimes I leave one scholar to keep school while I go 
into another room to hear a lesson, and then I require an 
account of their stewardship. I am always careful to select 
one whom all will concur in respecting and of whom they will 
feel no jealousy when they are censured. I once left this boy 
in charge, but after a short time he came and requested to be 
released, because he felt as if it was like tale-bearino; to tell 
of his companions, and he did not feel sure that they would 
be willing. I saw by this that he meant to be faithful ; 
indeed, it was not till after I had full confidence in him that 
I ventured on so important a step. I presume he did not feel 
as if I could say, as I had said of some others, " You know 
— ; — would not find fault with you if he could help it, or if 
his conscience did not require it of him." There is no 
point that must be managed with such delicacy as this of 
discriminating between truth and falsehood. Children live 
so long in their ideal worlds, and are so much talked to 
in symbols, that when they begin to deal more with realities 
they must often be reminded to be accurate. I would lead 
them gently out of the creations of their imaginations when 
this time comes, constnntly reminding them that they must 
tell things just as they are ; and when they embellish their 
statements, J go over them quietly, re-stating for them, and 
leaving out all the marvellous additions. Little children 
will often quote their absent mothers' authority, when it is 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 175 

impossible that the circumstances can have been anticipated. 
I always reply to this very decidedly, " Oh ! no ; mother 
did not say so. She does not know anything about it ; you 
must not tell me so ; that is saying what is not true, which is 
very wrong." If they persist, I say, " Very well ; I will 
write a little note to mother when you go home, and tell her 
I am afraid her little child has said what is not true, shall 
I ? " This will generally bring out a confession. I do not 
punish on such occasions, for there is no surer way of pro- 
ducing falsehood than by inspiring fear, but I try to produce 
a little agony in the conscience and make a child very un- 
happy for the moment. This suffering can be referred to 
afterwards, in private, and the danger pointed out of grow- 
ing wicked, which I find the greatest instrument of awaken- 
ing the inward monitor. 

Some people object to allegories and fairy stories for 
children, but I am never afraid of them if they are true to 
nature, truly imaginative, or if the impossible is occasionally 
caught a glimpse of. A fairy that comes out of a flower, is 
an imaginary being that will never disturb the dreams or 
deceive the intellect of a child. I always call such stories 
poetry, and sometimes ask what they teach. If a teaching 
use cannot be made of them, they are not written conscien- 
tiously and are not good food for the young. A child of 
well cultivated imagination will be likely to be more rather 
than less truthful than others. But I do not like ogres. I 
once had a scholar, a child of eleven years, that had never 
known the care of parents. She was a southern child, 
whose parents died in her infancy, and she was sent from 
one boarding-school to another, where she was made the 
tool of unscrupulous girls to obtain their ends against author- 
ity. She told untruths always, even upon the most trivial 
matters, as if she feared being circumvented, or giving any 
handle to others by whom she might be blamed. She was 
so subtle, that it was almost impossible to obtain a fact from 
her, although she lived in the family. Her relations had 



176 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

wholly neglected all personal care of her, and I found she 
knew nothing whatever about them. I learned that her 
parents were two very lovely young people, both of whom 
died early of consumption, and she had an uncle who was 
a bachelor and a very wealthy planter. He had been very 
fond of his sister, and meant to take home this child and 
make her his heiress as soon as she was old enough. She 
had the precocity of constitution and temperament common 
to the southerners, but had no interest in life at all except 
for present gratification. It was difficult to interest her 
in anything, and I determined to try the experiment of 
describing her parents and her uncle, and telling her of 
her future prospects. I saw when I was talking to her 
that she was much moved, but she did not wish me to 
know it. During the several months she had been under 
my care, I had never seen her off her guard, and she did 
not mean to be now. She said, "yes, I know," several 
times, but in her emotion she had forgotten that she had told 
me several times when I had asked her, that she had no 
relations. As I went on speaking of the lovely character 
of her mother, who died at her birth, I saw the color flash 
and her lips quiver, but she would express no interest in 
the matter in words, and I took no notice of her natural 
emotions. But when I went on to speak of the uncle and 
his beautiful home, his love for his sister, and for her, whom 
he had never seen since her babyhood, and of his wish 
that she should preside over his home when old enough, 
she fairly burst into tears ; and when I drew her into my 
arms she put her head on my bosom and gave way to vio- 
lent sobbing. But still she was cautious in speaking, and I 
did not convict her of having concealed the truth. She 
was naturally very timid, and I had divined the cause of her 
phase of falsehood. She had been treated very cruelly, 
and was afraid of human beings. After a while she pro- 
posed to write to her uncle and tell him what she was 
studying; but although I doubt not life had a new inter- 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 177 

est to her, I could not tell what was the characteristic of 
her interest, owing to her great reserve. It might have 
been sordid, for she was very selfish ; but she was soon 
removed, and I had no opportunity of seeing her for many 
years. I then found her still in the family of her guar- 
dian, to one of whose sons she was engaged, but I was 
told there was no love, only speculation, at the foundation 
of the young man's views, and the seeds of consumption, 
inherited from her mother, had begun to ripen in her. She 
was brilliantly beautiful, and showed a great deal of feel- 
ing on seeing me, but died very soon after. The only 
evidence I ever had of the existence of the moral senti- 
ment in her wronged soul, was her fondness for another 
child in my family, who was the soul of truth and love, 
and w r ho had divine patience with this her little tormentor, 
whom she watched over and remonstrated with like a little 
mother. This companion, of just her own age, had had a 
very remarkable moral training, consecrated forever by the 
sufferings for conscience' sake of a very dear and gifted 
mother, whose persecutions were known to her child, and no 
one could know her, not even the most hardened or ob- 
tuse, without being affected by her. She was a little Christ 
among other children, and so regarded by them, and I 
always hoped that the poor little waif had through her a 
glimpse of the Heaven into which she seemed to have no 
passport. At the time, I rejoiced for my little angel, when 
her heart was relieved of such a charge, for certain nat- 
ural graces as well as the condition of moral benightment 
of the little stranger had taken very deep hold of her ; but 
I think a reform might have been effected with such an 
aid. The martyr's child lived long enough to fulfil her 
promise, and grew happy enough to blossom out into some 
buds of lovely promise, intellectual as well as moral, and 
then she went too, but could be no more an angel the other 
side of the veil than she was on this. Plow slight the bar- 
rier sometimes seems to be, yet how impervious ! Was it 
8* 



178 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

the divine love in you which made you do that? was her 
mother's form of reproof, always remembered. 

Is there any danger of inspiring a child with too great 
self-reliance, by directing it to the immutable law of God 
in its own breast as a guide of conduct ? It has been wisely 
said that we know of the moral nature of God only what 
the moral sentiment teaches us, and that the visible world 
and revelation only confirm what this sentiment gives pri- 
marily. We know that the sentiment of reverence may be 
directed to objects unworthy the homage of the soul. In 
the fluctuations of human opinion there may be a higher or 
lower view of God's nature. He may be looked upon as all 
justice without mercy, or as mercy without justice, or as a 
union of both, according to the enlightenment of the in- 
tellect, but we can cultivate in every child a reverence for 
God's voice in conscience, an allegiance to God as goodness 
itself, or as a Father, ready to forgive us when we repent, 
and to help our efforts. The human being may by turns 
worship God as a Father, as a power, or as law ; and sal- 
vation, or the redemption of the soul from evil, does not de- 
pend upon the form of belief, but upon the allegiance to that 
something higher which is a law to it. I do not say that it 
is not important what the form is, for we know that there is 
all the difference in the world between the savage's worship 
of his fetish, and the Christian's of his God, but the savage 
may be more loyal to the small glimmer of truth represented 
by his fetish, than many a so-called Christian is to his more 
advanced conception of Deity. Therefore it is loyalty of 
soul which is to be cultivated, and that is done through con- 
science. 

I know no higher motive to be given to a child or to a 
man, than that the more he obeys the voice of conscience, 
the more tender it becomes ; and the more he cultivates his 
intellect the greater will be its expansion ; and no fear that 
either can entertain is so salutary as the fear of losing the 
delicacy of the conscience, or the power of increasing insight. 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 179 

Offer no secondary motives, but as high a view as we can 
give of the primal one. not judging for our fellow-man, or 
even child, what it is ready to receive, for either may be 
capable of receiving more than we can give. 

This does not interfere with bringing the consequences of 
wrong-doing into immediate view, which is in fact all that 
we do when we punish judiciously. If a child is selfish he 
is thrust aside by those who have the power to do it. This 
is a direct natural consequence, quite as much so as that 
the selfishness grows by indulgence, but weak children in 
a school or in a family must not venture to thrust aside an 
offender. I must therefore come to their assistance. 

I have one child in my school who has so little power of 
self-control, that I am obliged to be very peremptory with 
him every day. It would not be sufficient for me to say, 
" You trouble others so that they do not like to have you sit 
near them," and wait for that truth to influence him. I 
must put him in a seat by himself, and show him that he is 
not to approach others now, and that he must make an im- 
mediate effort to gain a better social position. If anything 
comes into his head, he seems utterly incapable of refraining 
from the utterance of it, even in the midst of a recitation, or 
be it ever so irrelevant to the matter in hand. He wishes to 
tell anecdotes of which he is reminded by something read or 
recited. If I tell him he must not take up the time, he is 
so earnest to go on, that often I cannot stop him without 
walking him out of the room. Then I tell him that since 
he has no power of self-control, he must stay there till I call 
him ; or I allow him to return on condition that he does not 
open his mouth even to read or to recite. I impose this 
privation to teach him self-control, the want of which will 
make him annoying to every one. He pours forth many 
sensible remarks and more good feelings, but the law of 
adaptation seems wanting. He has sensibility and con- 
science, and a general desire to do right. If not approved, 
he is afflicted ; if he does not succeed in his undertakings, 



180 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

he cries with grief, cries aloud often, though a huge boy of 
nine years old, — a little giant in form and strength. He 
generally seems to tell the truth, though he is weak, and 
yields easily to the temptation of gaining his ends. But if 
he cannot remember easily, he lashes himself into hysterics. 
He has quick perceptive powers, but little power of reason- 
ing. My aim is to show him the connection between his 
faults and his sufferings ; to let the latter be felt to be the 
whip that scourges his faults — not himself; for there is no 
fair proportion between the constant punishment he brings 
upon himself and his wilful wrong-doing. I am afraid he 
will always be a trial to his friends. He is one of my least 
hopeful cases, because not well gifted. I am afraid there is 
a germ somewhere that the sun has not yet shone upon — 
that some tile that is now weighing down his brain must 
be lifted before mortal man can help him. You remember 
the story of Descartes, who was an idiot till his skull was 
cracked, when suddenly the brain expanded, and the fissure 
never closing, he became a great man. Perhaps my obtuse 
boy will get some friendly blow, mental or physical, that will 
let in the light. His mother turned him out into the. street 
to amuse himself, because she could not manage him. If she 
had not, perhaps I should already have turned him back 
upon her hands, for he really is the greatest trouble I have. 
My hope for him is that maturity and experience will teach 
him what others cannot. This is often the case. 

Another little fellow appears to have no natural percep- 
tion of the rights of others. He does not understand the 
sentiment of obedience, as many lively children do. If I 
keep my eye fixed upon him, he does not do the things I 
positively forbid him to do, but he is the very prince of mis- 
chief, and I am obliged to watch him narrowly lest he turn 
inkstands upside down, and go to such like extremes. In 
some cases I merely follow my instincts, and this is such an 
one. I feel as if I were to put principle into this child be- 
cause I have it myself, much as the magnetist imposes his 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 181 

will upon his patient by exercising it forcibly. I find my- 
self looking at him much more than I talk to him, not al- 
ways reprovingly, never stealthily, but steadily and gravely. 
I do not like to govern, but I am not afraid of children, as 
some people are. My nerves can bear their crying, if they 
do not cry with pain, and they soon learn that they gain 
nothing from me by it. They do not put me out of temper, 
or exhaust my patience, or my perseverance ; but the de- 
termined will, the ever-springing gayety, the wild spirits that 
tire most people, are a constant source of pleasure and ex- 
hilaration to me. It seems to me so unnatural that childhood 
should be naughty, that if they are obstinate I am very apt 
to think it the fault of some still more obstinate grown per- 
son, who has turned a stout heart into a wilful one by unwise 
opposition ; and I love to set myself to disarming the stub- 
born will, leaving it only resolute. If they are false, I feel 
as if their faith had been broken, or their fears excited, and 
I love to show them the beauty of truth, or inspire them with 
moral courage. If they are passionate, I love to calm them 
down, and give them the pleasure of tranquillity, and the joys 
of self-conquest, — not " breaking their spirits," but sympa- 
thizing with their ardor while I check its excesses ; for en- 
thusiasm is a boon of which I would not deprive humanity. 
If they are phlegmatic, commonly called stupid, I love to 
find some subject or object of interest that will startle them 
into animation ; if timid and easily discouraged, I can give 
them the pleasures of success by offering only practicable 
tasks ; if self-conceited, I can point out to. them the kingdoms 
of knowledge yet to be conquered. I often quote the words 
of Linnaeus, who once said it would take him all his life to 
learn thoroughly what was under his own hand, and what 
was this compared with the universe ! 

I believe I enjoy the youngest of my tribe most, before they 
know evil or are accustomed to hear of it with composure ; 
when the wanton killing of a bird, or even of a spider, excites 
their weeping indignation ; when the creations of their own 



182 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

fancies are as real to them as the things before their bodily 
eyes ; and they do not question if the bird in the story 
speaks, or the stars sing. One may then imagine that 
they may be among the few who love to the end with un- 
broken faith, who never lose their primitive innocence, but 
grow as the tree grows, whose leaves, when the early frost 
nips them, turn to scales to protect their sister growths, 
adding to the final perfection of the whole, not arresting its 
beautiful and symmetrical progress, neither withering in the 
bud, nor throwing out gnarled branches to the light and 
heat that would fain warm and smile upon them. I would 
not pin these little inheritors of the earth to one seat, or al- 
ways check the wild burst of delight, or the ringing laugh. 
I even like to have the older children hear it occasionally, 
and recognize it with a smile as I do, for they have already 
begun to remember happiness, alas ! as if it had already be- 
gun its flight. They have laughed when it was not sym- 
pathized with, been reproved for loving fun, and deprived 
of innocent sports because they were not convenient to 
others. I like to keep up their sympathies with the spon- 
taneous activity and pure imaginations of these babes. It 
is out of order for a little child that catches my eye to run 
across the room to say, " Oh, may I come and see 'oo 'ittle 
while?" but I cannot but nod assent, and he will come and 
scramble into my lap, where he is no sooner fairly settled 
and hugged than he will scramble down again and go back 
to his slate or his window. If he nestles up into his sister's 
chair, while she is studying, I put my finger on ray lips, but let 
her put her arm round him and keep him till he is tired. This 
little sunbeam begins to wish to draw on the slate, and the 
little sister of seven years takes the greatest interest in what 
he does, as if expecting some angelic exploit of the pencil. 

But though I wish to have self-government in my scholars 
instead of my own, dear Anna, do not for a moment mistake 
me. I consider obedience an essential ingredient of order, 
and order I regard as " heaven's first law." Indeed I have 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 183 

sent away one scholar of whom I have spoken a little way- 
back, because I could not command his obedience ; and my 
authority must not be questioned, although I do not obtrude 
it. No human being can be good or happy who cannot obey ; 
and those parents do the best thing for their children, who 
successfully cultivate the sentiment. For, if it is the senti- 
ment, it will acknowledge all lawful authority. When it is 
merely a practice gained through fear, there is generally no 
sentiment in it. The child who will not eat the bit of cake 
offered in its mother's absence, because she has refused to 
let him have it before, — and I have known many such, — 
is truly the obedient child. Children not only respect most 
but love best those whom they cheerfully obey. A child 
that obeys a judicious and affectionate mother, or teacher, 
will often, in the midst of its opposition and wilfulness, ac- 
knowledge that the power which rules him is a beneficent 
power. If I did not think that a pretty good child would 
feel that I was in the right very soon after a conflict of wills, 
I should suspect myself of having given some evidence of 
love of power or want of good temper. I would not restrain 
an expression of honest indignation, or strong disapprobation, 
if the offence deserved it; but any impatience of temper, or 
any personal feeling, except that of sorrow, is a crime in this 
relation. It may not be in a mother's or teacher's power to 
be always wise, judicious, or intellectually ready for an oc- 
casion ; but the virtue of patience is lawfully demanded of 
them at the tribunal of conscience always. Corporal punish- 
ment I have nothing to do with, for though I know it is 
necessary in some extreme cases, I prefer that parents should 
exercise that function. No person that has a less vital in- 
terest in a child than a parent, should inflict it ; and though 
as a principle of government I consider it brutalizing, there 
are instances in which I have felt it to be a holy act, and in 
which I have known the child to respect it, and to feel hurt 
for its parent rather than for itself. But my own influence, 
to be secure and useful, must be wholly moral and intellec- 



184 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

tual. I often tell children that I must inform their parents 
when I find them impervious to any influence of mine ; and 
when, as has sometimes been the case, they have begged 
me not to do it, because they should be whipped, I have said 
that " perhaps that was the very best possible thing that could 
be done, and if a parent thought it necessary to whip his 
child, it must be because he truly loved him, and thought it 
right to do what must be to himself a painful thing : such a 
reason must not deter me from doing my duty. I should 
not act according to my conscience if I concealed anything 
from parents, for they are the guardians God has appointed 
over children, and I should do wrong to prevent them from 
knowing everything that I knew, that would help them make 
their children good." 

I cannot provide for those exceptional cases illustrated to 
me by a little new scholar I once had, who was very refrac- 
tory. I said to him, u don't you wish to be good, Lewis ? " 
"No," he cried out in a distressed voice. He was only six 
years old, but this seemed to be a new case, so I put my 
arm affectionately round him and said, " What does it mean 
to be good, Lewis ? " He raised his tearful eyes to me and 
gasped out " ter be whipped!" I never saw a look of 
greater infantile woe ; but I soon taught him that that was 
not what I meant by " being good." 

I know one mother who has a family of excitable children, 
which she treats wholly on hygienic principles. If they are 
out of temper, she administers nauseous doses of medicine, 
and such has been her power over their consciences that she 
can make them grateful to God for such blessings as ipecac- 
uanha and epsom salts, even when she is holding the spoon 
to their mouths. This is a fact within my knowledge ; and 
it was the first thing I knew that set my thoughts upon the 
track, which has led me to a firm conviction that half the ills 
of temper and perversity may be traced to physical causes ; 
for her instinct proved to be a correct one. Her children 
were honorable and affectionate, but irritable, and this was 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 185 

owing to an unhappy inheritance of physical structure, in- 
compatible with serenity till counteracted by judicious treat- 
ment. One of those wise physicians, who sometimes adorn 
the profession, was her aid and counsellor. " Her children 
rise up and call her blessed," and bless her too. 



LETTER VI. 

Dear Anna, — I have just heard that you think of 
changing your original plan, and becoming a governess. At 
the risk of being impertinent, I must give you the warning 
of experience against this course. I know the voice of ex- 
perience is not an unerring one, because circumstances differ 
almost infinitely, but I think the relation of governess an un- 
natural one, and also that the disadvantages of home edu- 
cation, given exclusively, far overbalance its advantages. 
Mark me, I say given exclusively, for I think the early ed- 
ucation should always be domestic. I would have every 
mother set apart from all the other duties of life to attend to 
her children, and be qualified to give them the rudiments of 
not only moral but intellectual training. I know only one 
mother who has done this absolutely and with all the requi- 
site surroundings, though I know many who would be glad 
to do it. Perhaps I should say I know only one father who 
has made it possible. Doubtless there are some fathers who 
would be glad to have it done, with whom the mothers are 
not ready to cooperate. I could branch off here, and tell all 
I think about parents not having the right views of their 
parental duties, but that would take me still farther back, 
to the subject of being married on the right principles, which 
I have been led to reflect much upon, as I have circulated 
through the families of my friends, particularly of those who 
have from time to time put their children into my charge. I 
speak it with diffidence, but I see many families in which the 
children are regarded in the light of annoyances rather than 



186 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

of blessings ; consequently they are penned up in nurseries, 
put to bed by servants, fed by them, washed and dressed by 
them, excused by them, falsely entertained by them, in fact 
educated by them, until they are old enough to be quiet in- 
mates of the parlor, when they are allowed to be present to 
listen to conversations about the last new fashion, or com- 
ments upon the party of last night and that of the night to 
come. I have known the mothers of children under my 
care, to promise a sick child she would not go out in the 
evening, in order to quiet her querulous complaints of her 
nurse or attendant, and then to break the promise as soon as 
the child fell asleep, confiding in its mother's sincerity. This 
is an extreme case, but it is not so rare for mothers to send 
their children to bed under the care of servants, instead of 
leaving the pleasant fireside to make the most of that gra- 
cious hour when the heart of the child is most likely to un- 
fold to the tender parent, and to utter its repentant confession. 
or fervent little prayer. 

But this is wandering a little from the point. I begin to 
think I indulge in too many digressions ; but my vocation 
leads me into such observations and reflections. 

I know there is much to be said on both sides of this ques- 
tion. I should give you the sum of my opinion, if I should 
say that after the age has arrived at which children are or- 
dinarily sent to school, an alternation of the home and the 
school education is the best mode. Here experience raises 
her voice again ; for the best educations I have known, all 
other things being equal, have been in two families where 
this has been done. In one of these, the watchful eye of the 
mother saw the very moment in which the home influence 
was becoming too exclusive and oppressive, and also when the 
school influence became scattering to the mind from too much 
companionship, or when ambition took the place of love of 
knowledge and excellence. The school intercourse was oc- 
casionally broken in upon by months of home life, when the 
mother devoted herself as companion in study and recrea- 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 187 

tion, and kept alive her daughters' sympathy with her in her 
domestic duties. I have often seen the mere school-life kill 
out this sympathy with mothers and younger members of 
the family, and foreign influences quite counteract the paren- 
tal ones. 

My own favorite mode of education would be to send 
children to school after they have been well trained in imag- 
ination and self control at home, at the age when the social 
feeling seeks variety, and can receive least injury from indis- 
criminate contact; and when arrived at the age when too 
much companionship becomes dangerous, to call the girls 
back to the home influences, and let them there pursue, with 
judicious assistance, or even a chosen companion, the studies 
best adapted to the peculiarities of character, the mother 
ever keeping herself the chosen confidant, and making her- 
self a willing sacrifice, instead of allowing the social tenden- 
cies of her daughters to expend themselves on frivolous or 
unworthy companions. Mothers are too apt to indulge their 
own ease, and allow their children to frequent, alone, scenes 
of amusement over which parents should always preside. I 
have known marriage relations to be formed and cemented 
by daughters so neglected, before parents knew even the 
fact of acquaintanceship. 

I know how difficult is such practice as I would recom- 
mend, in our present state of society ; but one can hardly 
help following out one's imaginings of perfect circumstances, 
and fancying all the good that might accrue in such millen- 
niums. It was very sensibly remarked to me a little while 
since, by one to whom I was speaking of my ideal of educa- 
tion for girls, that we can rarely begin and go on with them 
according to any one system ; for they are brought to us in 
all stages of development, most frequently, alas, without 
any. You will please always to understand me as if every- 
thing went on right from the beginning. 

To return to your present plans. I think I must have 
learnt this rambling habit which so often leads my pen off 



188 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

the track, when roving the woods and fields in my extreme 
youth, now resting by the side of the arrowy river of my 
favorite valley, where the " sweet waters meet," or floating 
with you down the placid Charles at the winds' and the 
tides' sweet will. 

I anticipate what you will tell me of the advantages 
under which you enter upon the career of a governess. I 
expect a glowing description of your new life, because I 
know how you love and admire those friends ; but that 
will make no difference in my views. I too have a friend 
with whom I agree upon the subject of education ; a mother 
whose experience and wisdom have aided me much, and 
whose spirit has presided over my school-room as a sort 
of tutelary genius, into whose family I should be willing to 
go and give all the aid I could furnish for the furtherance 
of her plans, (her own book-knowledge not being equal to 
mine,) if she constituted the whole influence in her own 
family. There would be a perfect cooperation between us 
two, the intercourse of years having prepared the way for 
it. But her husband is not as wise as she is, and I would 
not therefore venture. Yours may be a peculiar case of 
sympathy with both parents, but let us look upon it in a 
general way. 

We will suppose a good family, and that the parents are 
conscientious, and have a general confidence in the judgment 
and acquirements of the governess. But if the mother is a 
person of decided views, and fixed in her own opinions, and 
the father also, you might immediately find insuperable diffi- 
culties. You would not like to exert any influence opposed 
to the parental, however injudicious you might deem that to 
be. You would not like to take sides with either parent. 
They might, by amicable discussion, modify each other's 
views, so as to do just right by their children ; while the in- 
fluence of another, thrown into either scale, would produce 
dissatisfaction. In your school-room, on the contrary, you 
can be perfectly independent of either, and without standing 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 189 

in the attitude of opposition, or running the risk of encroach- 
ing upon the rights of a parent, you can know just as 
much and just as little as you please of the difference of 
views ; and having your scholar in a new scene, and sub- 
jected to different influences, you may be able fully to carry 
out your own views, without exciting the jealousy of parents. 
This is the only way to avoid such collisions as I dread, and 
which seem to me almost inevitable in such a union as that 
of parent and teacher in the same family. As an indepen- 
dent teacher, your opinions may be expressed with the utmost 
freedom ; for I would have no tampering with truth. But 
few mothers are humble or wise enough to be willing to be 
criticised at home when it comes to the point. Then in my 
opinion such an inmate spoils a family, which should be a 
sacred circle where none intrude. I myself have had the 
whole care of children in a family, moral and intellectual, 
but no one but the parents ought to have had it. It set up 
an authority that was more respected than that of the parent. 
I have also, in another instance, had the sympathy and con- 
fidence of one parent, and the jealous watchfulness of the 
other, who would not listen to the suggestions of a third per- 
son. I have also seen children who knew more of truth than 
their parents, and who knew that I knew it ; and I would 
never again put myself in that position. I have seen the 
wounded vanity of otherwise good mothers baffle the best 
intentions and wisest action on the part of a governess ; 
and even sadder cases, where conscience itself must have 
been sacrificed to keep the peace. No individual should 
ever step between parents and children, and point out the 
errors of the former. Principles alone should do this ; noth- 
ing less sacred should intervene. In my school-room, I can 
dwell upon principles forever, and apply them to the cases 
in hand as closely and as skilfully as I please, and keep cleai 
of personalities, if I find them baneful. If one is in the 
family, this seems to me scarcely possible. Often when I 
speak of a wrong action, be it the wanton killing of a bird, 



190 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

or the indulgence of an evil passion, children say to me, " My 
father does that sometimes," and even add, " I wish he- would 
not." This moral judgment is inevitable ; it must come 
sooner or later, and the sooner the child defines the line by 
his own observations and reflections the better, but it must 
often pass without comment. I should be sorry to be obliged 
to be silent upon any point of right and wrong, because there 
are sinners at my elbow. In a school-room, which is a sep- 
arate world within the great world, — connected with it, yet 
severed from it, — principles may reign triumphant. In a 
family, persons prevail more or less, and this is one of my 
chief reasons for objecting to an exclusively private educa- 
tion. Special modes of thought and standards of action are 
imposed by example and habit ; and where there is no vari- 
ety of view's presented for comparison, minds cannot easily 
expand, still less choose the best of several good ways. I 
have seen the victims of private education perpetuate family 
faults, and in later life left standing alone in the world, know- 
ing little of its interests, and having no sympathy from with- 
out. I have seen morbid sensibility thus nourished into 
insanity itself. 

But you must tell me the result of your experiment. It 
dashes my hopes of any brilliant discoveries. I much ques- 
tion whether, under the most favorable circumstances, you 
will find yourself able to satisfy yourself and others too. 
Those friends who love you so much will perhaps be unwill- 
ing to make demands upon you ; and this will make you anx- 
ious to do all you can imagine them to desire. This is the 
worst of all slaveries — to be in a situation where one is not 
sure of all that is demanded, and where delicacy forbids the 
free expression of wishes. In most cases, too great requisi- 
tions are made upon the time and thoughts of a governess. 
There should be a rigid arrangement in regard to hours and 
services, leaving the time which is not employed in instruc- 
tion wholly free, independent, and solitary, if desired. For 
a time you will be willing to give all your waking hours to 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 191 

your employment, and feel that you cannot do enough to 
serve a friend ; but real teaching is an immense tax upon 
the mind and the health ; and you have duties to yourself, 
the neglect of which will at last unfit you for the proper ful- 
filment of the very engagement you have entered into. Your 
own qualities of character may clash with those of the fam- 
ily, and you cannot be supposed to have the touchstone to 
their peculiarities, that members of the same family have, — 
an innate and fibrous knowledge, as it were, of the springs 
of each other's action, and the associations that govern these 
springs. I have never seen a more painful tyranny exer- 
cised than that over a governess in one instance ; not a 
palpable tyranny that could be rebelled against and openly 
thrown off, but a total ignorance of another's wants and 
rights, that made the whole life a bondage. The lady who 
presides believes sincerely that she offers a happy home and 
easy duties to one whose whole time and thoughts are taxed 
in such a manner that she cannot feel at liberty to dispose 
of an hour, although many are actually left unoccupied by 
accident. This is an extraordinary instance of selfishness, I 
acknowledge, but it generally taints the relation, more or 
less. I have but one counsel to give to such sufferers. Sac- 
rifice everything but independence, but preserve that invio- 
late ; for without it one can neither be truthful nor capable of 
improvement. We never should allow ourselves to be in a 
responsible situation where we cannot express our opinions 
for fear of giving offence. There is enough of that servile 
fear in our common intercourse with our fellow-beings. Let 
us keep ourselves out of temptation while our daily prayer 
is that God may not lead us into it. 

I am prepared for a theoretic refutation of all my posi- 
tions, but shall probably be very self-opinionated till you 
have lived through this experience, as I have done. 

Yours, affectionately, M. 



192 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 



LETTER VII. 

My dear Anna, — I am somewhat reconciled to your 
being in a less independent situation than I wished for you, 
by learning that you are, after all, in a school-room of your 
own, surrounded by children educated thus far under various 
influences. The range of ages in your little company ap- 
pears to me rather too unequal ; but I have such confidence 
in your resources, that I will not forebode failure. I only 
hope you will not be distracted by too various calls. In my 
own experience, I was obliged to relinquish older and more 
advanced pupils in favor of younger ones, because I found 
the proper attention to the two classes incompatible, and in 
my own casp my heart was with the little ones. You are 
better fitted to cope with older children, because your force 
of will is superior to mine. 

I rejoice in your lovely surroundings. I once kept school 
near a gurgling brook, whose banks were ornamented with 
wild flowers, and the room was always redolent of perfumes, 
and garlanded with clematis and other flowers in their sea- 
son. Not only children's heads, but mine, were wreathed with 
them ; and many a lesson was given and learned under the 
trees, and on the grassy turf, golden with buttercups and 
dandelions. But now a few feet of sky, and a glimpse of 
verdant back-yards from one window, is all I can boast of 
when housed. I am blessed with the proximity of Boston Com- 
mon, through which I daily wander with my little flock, and 
many of my children have country summers to remember, — 
vacations at least. Cities are unnatural places for the young. 
All childhood should be passed in the country, and in after- 
life its memories can be pitted against the evils the grown- 
up must bear in pursuit of certain social privileges. 

I feel modest about describing my lessons, now you ac- 
tually have your classes before you, and are sounding cer- 
tain depths to meet the occasion. I wonder if you will 
begin with creation, as a friend I could name told me she 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 193 

did, when first meeting face to face a little disciple, her first 
pupil. 

I am glad you do not begin with a large school. In many 
schools that I have visited, I have seen that the teachers 
were overpowered by numbers. This is apt to necessitate 
— no, not necessitate, for that cannot be necessary which is 
wrong, — but it is apt to introduce the motive of emulation, 
as a part of the machinery. Emulation is a passion — I 
call it an evil propensity, so strongly implanted in the natural 
constitution of man, that it needs no fostering. It should be 
checked and restrained like any appetite, so that its only 
function may be the desire to emulate noble deeds, but never 
to be degraded into competition for praise or honors. One 
of the mothers of my children thinks it is a very useful ally 
to induce children To study hard spelling-lessons ; but I as- 
sure her it cannot be made to play into my spelling-lessons, 
which are natural growths out of reading-lessons. No, I 
banish that evil spirit from my dominions, and endeavor to 
teach my scholars to have a deep interest in ** each other's " 
progress instead of wishing to rise upon the ruin of others. 
I have a device which answers all the purpose of a healthful 
stimulus, and insures some of the lawful rewards of industry. 

In my present school, where the children are all under 
twelve, I made one class in arithmetic, including all who 
could count their fingers and thumbs, and, arranging them in 
the order of ages, began with the youngest, asking the ques- 
tions in Colburn's first lessons in arithmetic, and saying that 
I should take the first section and let each one go through 
with it before I went farther. When the youngest missed a 
question, I marked the number of it with her name, and be- 
gan at the beginning with the next in order. Some of them 
soon missed, others went straight through without a mistake. 
I simply said to the first one who did this, " You may return 
to your seat and occupy yourself quietly in any way you 
please every day at this hour until this lesson is over." 

The lesson was to continue half an hour. 
9 



194 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

Those who did not go straight through, remained and took 
another turn after each had tried. 

I had seen the pleasing effect of this mode of hearing a 
recitation practised upon older scholars, and knew that its 
charms would gradually unfold to these little ones. 

The first section was accomplished by all that first day. 
But I gradually took longer and longer portions ; and soon 
the pleasure of getting through, and having the disposal of 
little times thus gained, was very animating. I liked the 
effect much better than that I heard described by a distin- 
guished German mathematician, who told me that his father, 
who was a soldier, had a triangle of wood made, very sharp 
at the edges, on which he obliged him to kneel while he 
studied his arithmetic lessons. The effect was very stimulat- 
ing to his mathematical faculties, and •hough he hated his 
father at the time (a consequence I thought more of than he 
appeared to), he attributed to it a remarkable power, second 
only to Sir Isaac Newton's (who could think a train of math- 
ematical thoughts consecutively for twenty minutes), of think- 
ing his mathematical thoughts consecutively fifteen minutes. 

My little people were so delighted with their leisure, thus 
gained, that they voluntarily studied their lessons before- 
hand (which I did not require), and soon I was obliged to 
set off the older portion into a separate class, who went on 
with the mental arithmetic very rapidly, while the younger 
ones, who recited on the same plan, and enjoyed themselves 
in the same way, were more deliberate. I followed the same 
plan with " Fowle's Geographical Questions on the Maps," 
which is a very nice book for children's use. It makes them 
very thoroughly acquainted with maps. My favorite geog- 
raphy lessons (and the favorite lessons of my scholars too), 
are oral ; and I now have a course of lectures delivered on 
a certain day in the week by the children, which would 
amuse you, I am sure. I put my work-table on one end of 
the long writing-table, and my little lecturers stand behind it 
in turn, sometimes with a written lecture, sometimes with 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 195 

only a wand to point at maps or pictures, — and give their 
little lectures. One little fellow of eight would talk all the 
afternoon over a map if I would let him, telling stories of 
countries which he has heard of from me or others. Another 
is very fond of natural history, and her little lectures are 
about insects, and birds, &c. Indeed, these are their chief 
topics, — geography and animal life. 

In arithmetic I also have many other exercises, such as 
arranging beans in certain numerical forms ; and on the 
black-board I teach numeration in a simple way. I use 
Shaw's box of arithmetical blocks to teach the philosophy of 
carrying tens, and I think it admirable. I also have Hol- 
brook's frame of balls. All these devices help to make proc- 
esses clear. I find a very great difference in children in 
regard to arithmetic. I have had one scholar who never 
could go (she died at fifteen) beyond a certain section in " Col- 
burn's Mental Arithmetic." She reached that after repeated 
trials ; for when I found her grounded at any special point, 
I always turned back and let her review, and in that way 
she would gain a little at every repeated trial. This child 
found geometry easier than numbers, and mastered " Grund's 
Plane Geometry." She could also write out a reminiscence 
of Dr. Channing's sermons, or remember anything interest- 
ing in history, natural history, or anything of an ethical 
character. I also had one gifted little scholar who could 
not learn to spell accurately ; but she drew with great power 
and beauty, — with " an eye that no teaching could give," 
as was said of her by a fine artist. These discrepancies in 
talent are very curious. Phrenological philosophy alone ex- 
plains them.* 

* Since these letters were written, the St. William's school established 
in Edinburgh by George Combe, Esq., and in which that distinguished 
man taught personally during the latter years of his life, has proved con- 
clusively that, the Phrenological philosophy is a fine basis for education. 
The principle there practised is, to cultivate assiduously those faculties 
which were found naturally deficient in the pupils; thus aiming to make 
whole men out of what otherwise would have been but fragments of men. 



196 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

Having thus disposed of geography and arithmetic, in the 
last of which I doubt not your mathematical faculty will 
strike out something new, you will expect me to describe my 
modes of teaching language, as you know that to be my per- 
sonal hobby. I think I might have other hobbies if I knew 
more. But I do think the teaching of language covers a 
great deal of ground, bringing into play, as it certainly does, 
so many faculties. 

The first thing to be aimed at in language is, that it shall 
be clearly understood. It is not necessary to go out of one's 
own language to teach etymology. I take such words as 
funny, kindly, sweetly, and ask from what words those are 
derived. 

" What does funny mean ? " The answer will be, " Full of 
fun, or " Something that has fun in it." "What is kindly?" 
" Full of kindness." " What does agreeable mean ? " " Some- 
thing we like," said a little boy one day in answer to this 
question. 

" Does every one like the same things ? " said I. 

" No." 

"Then something may be agreeable to you that is not 
agreeable to me." 

"Yes." 

" Can you think now what the word agreeable is made 
from?" 

He could not think. 

" A thing agrees with something in me that does not agree 
with something in you, perhaps. I do not like the perfume 
of a narcissus. It does not agree with my sense of smell, 
but it agrees with some people's sense of smell." 

He was pleased with this, and saw that agree was the word. 

" From what is lively made ? " I asked. 

He hesitated. 

" What does it mean ? " said I. 

" Oh, lively, why it means very lively ! " 

" Can a table be lively ? " 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 197 

"No, it must be something that is alive. Oh, I know- 
now — alive is the word." 

" What is alive made from ? " 

" Living," he answered. 

" All these words are made from the name of something." 

This brought him to the word life, and then he sprang up 
and clapped his hands and whirled round. 

I do not always check these natural gymnastics. 

Such lessons as these I am teased for continually. Those 
who have studied I can carry still farther in derivation. I 
sometimes reverse the process and ask for all the words that 
are made from life, action, &c. 

Often when I give the children their slates to amuse them- 
selves a little while, they bring me lists of words made on 
this principle of analysis ; and I assure you that when I read 
to them, I am never allowed to pass by a word that is not 
understood. Several times when I have deliberately pro- 
nounced a very long word that I expected to be questioned 
upon, it has brought half a dozen of my little audience to 
their feet. 

I was very fond, when a child, of listening to lessons upon 
figures of speech, given in my mother's school ; and was 
quite expert in hunting up metaphors, tropes, hyperboles, 
and personifications. So I impart the same pleasure. The 
spiritual applications of words is pleasantly educed out of 
their sensuous qualities, also. " The sweet apple," and " the 
sweet child," are equally significant ; and it is well to trace 
back words thus figuratively used to their original meaning 
in the sensuous world, for they are felt to be more significant 
when thus verified. It leads to sound thinking. There are 
so many poetical expressions in common parlance, that it is 
very easy to put children upon this track. 

I have lately set up a little class in thinking, preliminary 
to giving some idea of the construction of sentences. I 
do not attempt to teach grammar technically to such little 
peoplo as mine ; but I contrive to induct it into them by 



198 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

certain devices, not wholly original, for they are recorded in 
the " Record of a School." Allow me to repeat the drilling 
with which I began. 

I called them around me one day to have a new lesson, 
which is always joyfully acceded to by these little lovers of 
new things, and nothing pleases them better than to be set 
to thinking. 

I asked them if they knew what their five senses were. 

Not one had ever heard those words used together, ap- 
parently. 

I enumerated ; sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste. 

Several individuals jumped up, whirled round, and sat 
down again. — 

I then asked each in turn to name some object, and tell me 
by which of their senses they could perceive it ; and by how 
many ? 

This they did readily again and again. They could see, 
and smell, and touch, and taste a rose, but they could not 
hear it. So of other things. 

I then said, u I have a thought ; do you know what it is ? " 

« No." 

" Cannot you see, or hear, or smell, or touch, or taste my 
thought?" ' 

" No." 

" Now each one of you think of some object, but do not 
speak till I ask you for your thought." 

" Can you see your thought ? " 

Some answered " No," others " Yes." 

I asked each in turn for their thoughts. They were a bird, 
a house, a horse, &c, all visible objects. 

I said, " All these things can be seen when they are before 
you ; but can you see the thought ? " 

Some answered " Yes " to this, which I found meant that 
they could see the image of the thing in the mind ; others 
said " No." 

" Can you see your thinking ? " 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 199 

" No." 

" Can you not send your thoughts out into the country, 
where you have sometimes taken a ride ? " 

" Yes." 

" Can you see, smell, hear, taste, or touch your mind ? " 

" No." 

" But is not mind a real thing ? Have not you a mind that 
you think with ? " 

" Yes." 

" There are some real things, then, beside those we can 
see, hear, smell, taste, and touch ? " 

u Yes." 

" What other things beside j^our mind ? " 

No one answered. 

" Have you any love ? " 

This brought many to their feet, with a shouted " Yes." 

u Any happiness ? " 

" Yes." 

"Goodness?" 

"Yes." 

u Naughtiness ? " 

« Yes." 

" Is truth in the mind, or outside of it where we can see 
it?" 

" In the mind." 

I then took Mrs. Barbauld's .hymns, in the first of which 
occur the words reason, kindness, heart, life, beside the 
names of many objects of the senses, and made two columns 
on the black-board, in winch I put down respectively, as they 
were mentioned, all the names of objects, both of the senses 
and of the mind. To the latter list I added the words God 
and soul, by the direction of the children, upon asking them 
if they could think of any more such words. 

I then made the same discrimination between actions of 
the body and actions of the mind, which they followed very 
well, sometimes confounding the two, as older philosophers 
do. 



200 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

I endeavored to give them the idea that things which they 
see, hear, &c., exist both in the mind and out of it. This I 
could do by asking them if the person who made the first 
chair did not think of it first. Was it not in his mind before 
he could make it ? So everything in the world existed in 
God's mind before he made it. 

I then asked, " Which column of words gives the names 
of real things ? " 

They all said the objects of the senses were the real things. 

" Can they not be broken up, or burnt, or worn out ? " 

" Yes." 

" Can the soul, or love, or goodness, or happiness, be 
broken, or burnt up, or worn out ? " 

"No." 

" Which are the things that last forever, then, — these 
objects of your senses, or these objects of your mind ? " 

" The objects of the mind." 

" Does your goodness always last ? " 

" No." 

" Where does it go to when you are not good ? " 

Nobody knew. 

" Can you have it again when you wish to ? " 

" Yes." 

" Who do you think keeps it for you ? " 

" God." 

" That is what we mean when we pray to God to help us 
to be good." 

All seemed to understand this. 

" Then we find," I said, " that the real things that last for- 
ever are in the mind ? " 

" Yes." 

" Do our bodies last forever ? " 

"No." 

" Do we live forever ? " 

" Yes." 

" Yes, our souls are the real things." 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 201 

This was enough for one lesson. Another day I asked 
about the qualities of things, and added a column for such 
words as green, white, pretty, &c. These are the main 
classes, and I shall go on by degrees to words expressive of 
relations, and to words that are substituted for the names of 
persons and things which are pronouns. The children are 
very fond of making lists of words of this sort, and often 
bring them to me, divided off into their respective columns. 

I have put the whole school, except the babes, into this 
class ; and of those who know how to read well I have made 
a Latin class. For this I use the interlined translation of 

" ^sop's Fables, " which Mr. G T first imported into 

this country. I began with a line of a fable committed to 
memory, with the English words beneath them. It is not 
only good for spelling to begin Latin early, but it gives pre- 
cision to thinking, if used aright. After learning one fable, 
by degrees, I let the children vocabularize the words by put- 
ting the names of things into one column, the names of ac- 
tions into another, as in the analysis of English ; and this 
has given them quite a vocabulary of Latin, from which we 
often make lessons in derivation. Putting the nouns into a 
column soon showed the modifications of termination, and 
then I explained the difference between that language and 
ours in that respect, and showed them how few small words 
were used in Latin. They have also studied the indicative 
mode of the verb amo, and have learned to substitute other 
verbs in the various tenses. But I confine them at present 
chiefly to committing to memory the fables. 

Dr. Follen thinks it well to teach German very early also, 
which gives the Teutonic element to our language ; but I 
have not done this in my present school, because the diffi- 
culty of the German letter is such a puzzle to little brains. 

French I only teach them colloquially as yet ; for the sight 
of French words confuses spelling very much with little chil- 
dren. It is well to exercise their organs in pronouncing the 
words ; and all my children can say many things in French. 
9* 



202 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

By and by I shall show them the words, if they stay with me 
till they are ready for them. All these exercises of mind, if 
not made fatiguing by too long continuance at one time, are 
perennially interesting to children. The new life and vigor 
a little hard thinking imparts to them makes one almost a 
convert to a theory lately set forth by one of our contempo- 
raries, that the scholar and thinker should be the longest lived 
man. I believe it will be found true, if the brain be healthily, 
not morbidly worked. I love to see the eye fixed in thought 
for a moment, even in a very young child : but I would have 
in the next moment a jump or a run, or a laugh ; and these 
generally alternate with thinking, if nature is left free. I 
am jealous of one moment's weariness at this age. I speak 
particularly now of very young children, who are only too 
willing to think, not of the wilful, playful rogues whom it is 
hard to fix one moment, because they would have no work, 
but all play. There is a great difference, however, in chil- 
dren of all ages, and I would be careful of them all. Force 
and vigor are so essential to health of mind, as well as of 
body, that I would secure those first to every child. 

I once had a very bright boy of four in my school, who 
had a very remarkable memory. He would learn a verse of 
poetry by my repeating it once, and learned to read with mar- 
vellous rapidity. It was almost alarming ; but I took care 
not to stimulate him in any way. He was suddenly seized 
with a violent influenza, and did not return to school for two 
months. When he returned, he had not only forgotten all 
he had learned, but never showed the same aptitude again. 
In a year afterwards he had not caught up with those first 
few months. This taught me never to urge a child to exer- 
tion while suffering from a cold ; and my attention having 
thus been directed to the point, I have often observed how 
that malady dulls the action of the faculties. 

I have one dear little scholar now, only too willing to ex- 
ert her mind ; and if I see that anything seems difficult to 
her earnest spirit, I advise her at once to put it aside ; for the 






MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 203 

tearful eyes tell me plainly that there is no need of urgency 
on my part, and that the danger is in too great persistence 
of the will for duty's sake. If it is necessary to explain the 
matter to others, I do not hesitate to say that that little 
scholar studies too hard for her health, and I do not wish her 
to be fatigued. It is necessary for her peace of mind to say as 
much as this, and the others only see more clearly what I 
wish them to see, that I measure them by the effort they 
make, not by the results they achieve. The same persistence 
of will and earnestness of spirit sometimes produces a violent 
shock of feeling in this child, if she is arrested in any of her 
purposes, even of play ; but a gentle steadiness on my part 
soon brings the repentant little head on my bosom. 

I often wish I knew how much moral and mental effort I 
ought to require of children, to keep the soul in full play and 
never encroach upon nature, which adjusts the balances so 
happily in her own way, when not constrained. I have to 
fall back upon my instincts for this, as the mother undoubt- 
edly does. This adjustment has been very happily and wise- 
ly made in the case of Laura Bridgeman, one proof of which 
is, that an obstacle in her path is only met as a joyful occa- 
sion for some new effort. If she finds a stumbling-block in 
her way, instead of falling over it, or being discouraged by 
it, she dances round it, and apparently hails it as a new proof 
of the power within her to conquer all things. If her thread 
gets tangled when she is sewing, she laughs and adjusts it. 
Giant Despair would in vain tempt her, but would try again 
to hang himself, as when, in olden time, Truth and Holiness 
together escaped from his clutches. Principles, when known 
to her, seem to be imperative ; and cut off as she is from the 
deceptive senses, she recognizes only the power within her- 
self, which laughs at the defiance of insolent brute matter. 
It was the plan of her education that she should not be told 
of God's existence till she gave indication of some idea of 
Him ; but in some way or other she became possessed of 
that name for the existence of absolute power and goodness 



204 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

(we do not know yet how far that embodiment of the idea 
was intuitive) ; and she already refers all things to His 
agency. One suggestion pointing towards that idea would 
necessarily fructify in such a mind as hers, and immediately 
she would have a name for the law within her which she 
obeys so wonderfully in conscience, and exemplifies so re- 
markably in her intellectual operations. She answers to me 
the question which I have heard asked, " Whence do the 
intuitions of the mind come ? " 

But I must go back to my little family once more. These 
children are quite expert printers, and have followed their 
fancies very much as to what they printed ; as, favorite sto- 
ries or scraps of poetry, for I did not wish the process to be- 
come tedious. One day I let each dictate to me a short 
story, which I wrote down as they dictated ; and while they 
were full of delight I proposed that they should write stories 
themselves, instead of copying them. This they subsequently 
varied with writing what they could remember of my read- 
ings to them ; so now I am overwhelmed with compositions 
of all sorts, and often very good ones. I have always thought 
it well for children to write a good deal, and I have never 
found any difficulty in making them like to do it. When I 
read or tell them anything I wish them to write, I often 
put leading words on the black-board, to suggest the or- 
der of the story, or the description ; or, to spell difficult 
words. One child writes funny stories, and laughs herself 
as she writes ; another gives descriptions of natural scenery, 
in the midst of which her characters find themselves. One 
writes about wolves and other horrors. I have a variety 
of pictures hanging on the walls, and I sometimes propose 
that they should write stories about them. These writings 
are all printed with lead pencil, or on the slate, because 
the mechanical difficulty of writing script with the pen makes 
it tedious to children. 

I shall look impatiently for your account of your proceed, 
ings. I believe I have told you the principal things I en- 



MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 205 

deavor to teach, but it is impossible to describe all the oc- 
casions on which one can minister to the inquiring minds 
of children. I suppose many persons would think I give 
too much time to playing and singing, but I do not often 
invite people into my school, for my ideas of order are dif- 
ferent from the ordinary one of sitting still and not speak- 
ing. I am perfectly content as long as the lifting of my 
finger or the tinkling of my little bell will reduce my sub- 
jects to order. 

I forgot to mention that one day in the week we resolve 
ourselves into a sculptor's studio. I seat the children around 
one of the long tables and let them model in clay. They 
make miniature vases, and even faces, and who knows 
but what some genius may be developed ? * Paper cut- 
ting is also one of my arts. It teaches forms as well as 
drawing, and some of these children cut very decent birds and 
other animals. Sometimes I draw for them to cut, and I 
have shown them the properties of a circle by cutting one 
and dividing it up into angles, acute and obtuse, and teach- 
ing them to put them together again. I was much pleased 
myself when I first understood the relation of angles to a 
circle, and find that other children also enjoy it. I let them 
play with the Chinese puzzle also, which exercises their 
inventive faculties, f 

If all teachers loved to play with children as well as I do, 

* One of these children subsequently evinced much talent for the plas- 
tic art, which she traced back to this opportunity. She always kept it 
up, and gave fair promise of accomplishing something in this department 
of art. 

f Several years after these letters were written, the Rev. Thomas Hill 
issued a series of cards containing geometrical figures composed of tri- 
angles of different sizes. They were very useful in aiding the develop- 
ment of the mathematical faculty in a private family, and might be used 
with advantage in the present Kindergarten-schools, whose success for- 
ever settles the question of the manner in which young children should be 
taught. The above letters exemplify the blind gropings of a true child- 
lover after that which has now been so beautifully developed by observa- 
tion and genius united. 



206 MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY. 

I think they would discover what I think I have ; that chil- 
dren need superintendence in their plays to defend them 
against each other. The only danger is, that the older 
person may lead too much, and not sufficiently follow the 
leading of the children. When children do work at any- 
thing, they should be taught to do it accurately and well ; 
but a concentrated effort should be very short. I hope 
everything, as I told you, from your discoveries in this 
charming science, of which I am never tired, I am never 
weary of talking about my little flock, and all the little flocks 
I have from time to time presided over. The last always 
seems to me the most interesting ; especially the younger 
ones. A new little being just waking up to a consciousness 
of the world environing it, is a new study to me always, 
one of which I never tire, as I am very apt to do of older 
people. When you have taught a few years, we will com- 
pare notes again. 

Very affectionately yours, 

M. 



SONGS. 



I. Lord's Prayer. 

-■— js -r — r* V — \ Kt — \ — K T 



Our Father, who in heaven art, Thy name be hallow - ed ; Thy 



r — S * — N~ 

\ — i- 5 K — '- — i 



Nt— N- 



-J=£ 



■ K 



m 






will as 'tis in heaven be clone, Let thy dear kingdom come; Give 









=fc 












us this day our daily bread, Our trespass - es forgive, As 



Ft 5 -*— •- 



V--L-^ 1/- 



:=£: 



X-zh- 



-\ |J K i— =? k- ■ 



we forgive the trespass - es Of those who injure us. De- 






liver us from doing wrong ; O, lead us from temptation's snare ; For 



HiilSSliillSi!^ 



thine the kingdom and the power, And glo - ry ev - er - more. 



II. The Fishes. 






$■-=& 



Happy the fish - es now appear, 



Sporting in 




**=& 



<ft=\ 



J*T^ 



— I 0— 1 — i ! — ^i-i—yi (- ! — a 



r 



^1=^— IN— 1 






wa 



ter bright and clear ; Now swimming, now diving, 

,N fe __ ^ ^ *. ^ !S 



I^ — *— ^i:1=zzii=!5zzifrizrNir»zzz:zNi-^s3-zN— =Ni-i— xi 
above, be - low ; Now they are straight, and now they all bow. 



SONGS. 



III. Brotherly Love. 



1. How de - lightful 'tis to see Lit -tie children who a - gree; 






:e=cps: 
■L_L_ 






tjjv-U-M 



stuf: 



tt=t= 



-0 — 
-i — 0- 



%EEB 



Who from every thing ab - stain, That will give each oth-er pain 






:=q 



3f 



J? 1 



O, how lovely 'tis to see 
2. 
Angry words they never speak, 
Promises they never break ; 
Unkind looks they never show ; 
Love sits smiling on each brow. 
O, how lovely, &c. 

3. 
They are one in heart and mind ; 
Courteous, pitiful, and kind ; 
Willing others to forgive, 
And make happy all who live. 



tzitzi^i— _:i:^:^±=:dJ 

Lit - tie children who a - gree. 

4. 
When at home, at school, at play, 
They are cheerful, blithe, and gay ; 
Always trying to increase 
Human pleasure, social peace. 

5. 
If we for each other care, 
All each other's burdens bear, 
Soon the human race will be 
Like one happy family. 
O, how lovely, &c. 



IV. At the beginning and close of plat, is sung 



Front to back we march a - way, Let us all go out to play. 

4 : ^-| :r # — #- : - 1*—d~ ~4^j t~3— II 







a 

, p. 

i i 



0- -0- -4 
Front to back we march a - way, Now we all have done our play. 



V. The Pigeon House. 



f • • p. I 1 • 

We o - pen the pigeon house a - gain, And set all the 



=*¥=*»*= 



£& 






E&tpt 

5 



^— z£=zMt:j— z: 



Ht-J- 



izn: 



hap - py flutt'rers free ; They fly o'er the fields and grassy 



0- 



SONGS. 



3 



mfe 




i — -_j. — i — ,-j- — i — =._ 






*=fc£ 



plain, Delight - ed with joyous lib - er - ty ; And when they re- 



j — , — » — a-.i _^ & .*_ j. — i 1 . i — i — 



P — P I- P- —J— -h~P- — 



turn from their merry flight, We shut up the house and bid 'em good night. 



-J — I — l-'-r H ' J > 

■y-#— j-i- i 



II 



VI. The Cuckoo. 



-^te£=tefa 







Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo ; The cuckoo calls the children, cue- 



££=t 



fcrrf 



koo, cuckoo, cuckoo, 




Let us all call him to us, cuc- 



koo, cuckoo, cuckoo ; Yes, yes, the cuckoo is alone to-day, cuc- 



L * # _-L_« C ^ €_ L_ # & 0-B !_• 

koo, cuckoo, cuckoo ; Yes, yes, he wants to join our merry 



*1 



s «. v ^ ^ 







play, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo ; You have not been calling your 



-N 



■6 — 5 — ^- ± -^ — ^ — ^ 



S: 



~N« 



^:±fl=*=;e: 



W-M- 



V-J 



friends in vain, "We now can play all to-geth - er a - gain, cuc- 



~1 — -ft— -frrl — P~rfi—f — Si-zN— ^zr^— izi-f n 

* *— l_S » ^! J. H— l -i u 



koo, cuckoo, Dear lit - tie child, cuckoo, cuckoo, dear child, 



SONGS 



VII. The Peasant. 



*=£ 



^ae 



v-j 



1. Would you know how does the peasant, Would you know how does the 



Ej=j 



S 5 



*5zt4st . I — 



£ 



izzd: 

fczafc 



peasant, Would you know how does the peasant, Sow his barley and 
wheat 1 Look, 'tis so, so does the peasant, Look, 'tis so, so does the 



* x 



peasant, Look, 'tis so, so does the peasant, Sow. his barley and 



-^ 1 S ly 1 1 a m 1 1 -m F 1- \ 



111 



— K Nt~ 



i*==tiE=E 



H-+ -0- 

4- 



-# 1 — 



wheat. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la 



I T~1 — I — f^T 9 s ■ h t~! — 7 1 1 f "T"Tl 



la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. 

2 Would you know how does the peasant 
Reap his barley and wheat ? 

Look, 'tis so, so does the peasant 

Reap his barley and wheat. La, la, la, &c. 

3 Would you know how does the peasant 
Thrash his barley and wheat 1 

Look, 'tis so, so does the peasant 

Thrash his barley and wheat. La, la, la, &c. 

4 Would you know how does the peasant 
Sift his barley and wheat ? 

Look, 'tis so, so does the peasant 

Sift his barley and wheat. La, la, la, &c. 

5 Would you know how rests the peasant 
When his labor is done? 

Look, 'tis so, so rests the peasant 

When his labor is done. La, la, la, &c. 

6 "Would you know how plays the peasant, 
When his labor is done ? 

Look, 'tis so, so plays the peasant, 
When his labor is done. La, la, la, &c. 



SONGS. 



VIII. The Sawyer. 



fe=^E*e 



m 



t::t 



E^tE 



3 



J=I 



Let us now be - gin our sawing ; Forwards, backwards, 



-i 1 — ,— qqr»=y= 



pushing, drawing, Sawing, sawing wood in two ; Little pieces, 



§=3E 



-. — i 



5^' 



-*=t— f=r— •- 



fcfczt= i2=U=rta=p=± 



-?-*. 



- = 5- L - 
big - ger pie - ces, See saw, see saw, see saw, see ! 



Let us now leave off our sawing, 
Rest awhile in pretty playing, 

Playing, playing, playing so ; 
Playing, playing, playing, playing, 

Till 'tis time to saw again. 



IX. The Cooper. 



Kt~€- 



* N =A^ 



\v q at m a C : Z— - 






r 



i ^ i 

I am a cooper, and barrels I bind ; And on my 







brow perspi - ration I find; But happy and merry I 



-*!--*— 



..__ _-4- — ^\ — p iJ-fcH-'"-^ 

.~*^=3 — *4-s — »-!-• — •— 9h--3 




always am found, While with my big hammer I pace all a- 



r — I- 



3E 



round, around, 



-Kt *T — I *T 1 T _ *T T ' T 1 T •"■ 



around, 



i:p=:i_pz=: 
round, round, round, round. 



6 



SONGS. 



X. The Wheel-barrow. 




Come, take your barrow, neighbor John, The clock strikes six, we 



|-p - if* 






t t* \ 


P ? 


p. 








! 








■ " * r 


Lit L "/ d 


- * V 


V 


G .. i 


V 1 



must be gone ; The birds are sing - ing in the bower, The 



V— L -y i - 



-0 

5-x 



-h 0- 



H*T 






bees are bu - sy on the flower ; Come, take your bar - row, 




let us go, And call up - on our neighbor Joe ; We've much to 







do, and time flies on, Make haste, make haste, we must be gone. 



XI. The Clappers. 



fe&=*=- 




The clappers in the cornmill move gently up and 




0~ I—I— ^\l—0—-^ L \ =1 



~K N 

— P 1- 

-# 0- 

-0 0~- 



down, The wa - ter gives them motion ; What heav - y sounds, Clip, 




0- -0- 

clap, clip clap, 



clip clap, clip clap, clip clap. 



SONGS. 
XII. & XIII. Windmill and Water-wheel. 



ta__ 



ffe? 



See the windmill, how she goes, While the wind so briskly 



izrp: 



blows ; Always turning freely round, Never i - die is she found. 



— 



Bill 



Or, XIII. See the water-wheel, how she goes, 
"While the water freely flows, &c. 



XIV. The Pendulum. 




• 1/ • i/ v v s • 

See it run, see it run, See the clock's straight pendulum 



» — » — *- 
-j — b — hr 












V — ^ — £ 




Move its long arm here and there, Not across, not in the square ; 
Stroke by stroke, both there and back, Always tic, and always tac, 

±-0 H. ±-0 (_ 1-0 Y-.— S —0 h L -0 * "- 1 



tic, tac, 
t — Nr 



tic, tac, 



tic, tac, tic, tac, Clock be steady, 









not un - ru - ly, Pray the right time tell me tru - ly For 
3 3 3a 

h # d d * d — fed — i b h — 



eat - ing, for sleeping, for 
_JLJS__N__ | K 1 £ l__ 

-(=— a— -1 — ]=r=g-~- :=PfC 

V — * « — * l -y* — )/ 

tell me the proper time ev' - ry day. 



work and play, O 




3 



SONGS. 



LJ H 1— *•■— V-, 1 4 




or - der be, Health and peace will dwell with me. Lit - tie arm go 



-P— =^_ J\,- -^— ^— «^_, 



A 



* — l_0 — m «_L ff # — J~#— ^ — ^-* 

there and back, Always tic and always tac, tic, tac, tac. 



zNzii^zi^-iz-N 



XV. The Rovers, 

-* r ~ 



nr^r~^ — fr — i — N"1 j r~ f* — fr ». 1 



We like to 



go 



roving, Prom place to place a 

* 




i-t-iii y< a> — 5H 

» L- -«--3- 



^ p - P 
moving, For wandering is such sweet employ, It fills our hearts with 

[-01- — ' J a m 0\-\ 1— % K H 1 =,0 ^ -\ 

l -0- 1 -I 1 - m n g J - A ~0—\ 1 *V— *-V *_J 

-0 0- -J- l/ -0- -0- 

qui - et joy. "Wander, we'll wander, We hear the warblers 
singing, The air with music ringing ; We hear the sheep cry 





-Hi 



jzzzz*zzz::=zzS»: l-*^_=:£ jzi :b— « C*_t 



We hear the sweet bees humming, We see the large flies 






~V 



£i 



— i J— ^-i-9 — #— i 






-» 1- 

ing, See, see, they fly a - way ! Wander, we'll wander, 




Wan - der, we'll wan - der, The flocks move on so state - ly, The 



SONGS. 




9 v ** a y 

fields are dressed so neat - ly, 






flowers smell so sweet- 



=t 



T \^~ 



£@ : * 



— ;J— Jr^^-fc- ^r-zj— Jr^rf 



i^m^ilJ 



ly ; Come, wander, we'll wander, wander, we'll wander. 



XVT. The Weathercock. 



Nr-d- 



a — # — * — ^-^-^ 1>— ' -# — * — Si*;. — *— L -" — # — ^- 

Like the weath - er - cock I'm going, When the 



V-X 
L -#- 



-K-r- 



E3^ 



storm 



lilllllj^r 
y wind 



-# 1— 

-0- -0- 

blowing ; 




:Sz ¥ 

While 



.— -Kt-1 



Ite 




Q#— 


#— 

0_J 


:B*_ 


r "" 

-5- L 



to East and 



West I'm turning, 



the com - pass points am learning. 



XVII. The Bees. 



-4— £.- 



The bees are flying and hum - ming, Why are they all 



com - ing ? Honey they do seek, Honey they do seek. 

r V Kr~i Krd H ~- N" 1 



Hum hum hum hum hum hum hum hum, Hum hum hum hum hum hum hum hum. 

Take care, beware, the drone is there ; Take care, beware, the drone is there. 



10 



SONGS. 




XVIII. The Ring. 



Equal treading, e - qual stepping, We dance and sing 



V 

all 



-0- 



m 



^ 1 — 









a ring ; All round we dance and sing. La, la, la, la, la, 



la, 



rf^ 



la, la, la, 






r- J -#- #-r— '- — K — K — *i n 



la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. 



XIX. The Hares. 







— i-p: 



:*3 



Hare in the hollow, sit - ting still ; Poor hare, are you ill, 



that you cannot jump and spring, jump and spring, jump and spring. 



IIis=ilI 



2. 



Hare now be careful, 
Sit quite still, 

The hunter is near ; 
Dogs are running down the hill, 
Sit quite still, sit quite still. 



Hare now be cheerful, 
Jump and spring ; 

All danger is past. 
Hare now spring, jump and spring, 
Jump and spring, jump and spring. 



XX. The Little Master of Gymnastics. 




id: 



j-- :-p-?- - 



:p 



Look at lit - tie Al - bert, He's hap - py and glad ; 



0'- 



s=S 



&=£*= 



=± 



-T4 
■4 



I 



Look at lit - tie Al - bert, what he has just made. 



BD 



i 



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